^RY OF P^llic^ 
 
 Logical sm'^€> 
 
 BS 2665 .A132 
 Abbott, Lyman 
 
 The epistle of Paul the Apostle 
 to the Romans 
 
THE EPISTLE 
 
 OK 
 
 PAUL THE AHOSTLE 
 
 T(J THE 
 
 ROMANS 
 
 WITH NOTES, COMMENTS, MAPS, AND 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 BY 
 
 / 
 
 Rev. LYMAN ABBOTT 
 
 AUTHOR OF "dictionary OF RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE," "JESUS OF NAZARETH," AND 
 A SERIES OF COMMENTARIES ON THE NEW TESTAMENT 
 
 Copyright, 1888 
 
 A. S. BARNES & COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK AND CHICAGO. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 IT is nearly twelve years since the last volume of this Commentary appeared. 
 The long delay can not be excused on the ground that a very busy life has left 
 little leisure for the careful study which must precede the publication of a Commen- 
 tary on Paul's Epistle to the Romans. The wish of my life is to apply to the 
 problems of human experience, political, social, and individual, the principles incul- 
 cated in the New Testament for the government of human conduct, and the up-build- 
 ing of human character. A careful study of the New Testament is an essential part 
 of that work. The labor of reducing to writing the conclusions is not relatively 
 very great, and this would need to be done, both to perfect and to preserve them, 
 even if there were no intention of giving these results to the public in a Commentary. 
 I can not, therefore, ask indulgence, either for the imperfections of this volume, or the 
 long delay in its appearance, on the familiar ground that it has been prepared in the 
 intervals of an otherwise fully occupied life. But, twenty years ago, in making some 
 preliminary studies for a Life of Paul, it appeared to me that the traditional view oi 
 his character was not borne out by such a knowledge as we possess of the facts of his 
 life ; that he was an evangelist rather than a philosopher, and^a poet rather than a I 
 scholastic. A careful study of his writings confirmed this impression, while it neces- 
 sarily involved an interpretation of those writings different in some important respects 
 from that which has very commonly obtained. The further this study was pursued, 
 the more important seemed the difference, and at the same time the clearer becamcj 
 the conclusions as to the true principles of interpretation to be applied, and the results 
 which those principles would furnish. These results have been embodied in the In- 
 troduction; sharply contrasted with those of the forensic school of interpreters, on pages 
 76 and 77 of the Introduction ; and still more compactly embodied in the paraphrase, 
 on pagcSS^, of the doxology with which Paul closes his Epistle. It is needless to re- 
 jtoat them here. Suffice it to say, that I believe that scholastic theology has beeni 
 imputed to Paul's writings not deduced from them ; that he i s essent ially a ChrisJ;ian | 
 mystic ; that his teaching, although cast in a different mold, is in its spirit essen- 
 tially that of the Fourth Gospel ; that his doctrine of righteousness is in its antagonism 
 to that of the Pharisaic, or external school, precisely that of the Sermon on the Mount. 
 These are not the views of the theologians and the commentators generally ; not 
 even of such scholarly authorities as Tholuck, Meyer, Godot, and Alfonl ; })ut they 
 seem to me to be confirmed Ijy tlie hymnology and the spiritual and devotional litera- 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 tare of the Church. I was not, however, willing to embody them in a volume with- 
 out taking time to meditate them ; to study and re-study the Epistle ; to compare it 
 carefully with Paul's other writings, and with those of the other inspired writers ; to 
 submit them by fragmentary publications to public criticism and debate ; and to 
 present them, both practically in sermons and public addresses, and critically be- 
 fore ministerial gatherings, that the spiritual results in the one case ami the critical 
 discussions in the other might test them. The only result has been to confirm and 
 deepen my early impressions. The effect on my own life-experience and work has 
 fully repaid the time and labor so expended. I trust the volume will be found the 
 better and more trustworthy for the delay. 
 
 The reader will observe also a peculiarity in the mechanical construction of the 
 volume. The Introduction gives a general view of the Apostle's life, character, and 
 writings, as they are interpreted in this volume. The volume itself consists of two 
 parts, though interwoven ; chapters accompanying the Revised Version, which may 
 be read through as a continuous and connected book by one who wishes to get the 
 general interpretation of the Epistle presented in this volume ; and annotations in 
 each chapter accompanying the Old Version, in which the student will find stated in 
 some detail the critical reasons for that interpretation. 
 
 "With these words of explanation, this volume and its conclusions are submitted 
 to the candid consideration of the Christian public, in the hope that, whatever may 
 be the final verdict as to either its spirit or its methods, it may lead to a fresh study 
 of the Epistle to the Romans, and so confer the intellectual and spiritual benefit 
 which such study always confers on the candid and painstaking student of Scripture. 
 
 LYMAN ABBOTT. 
 
 CoRNWALL-ON-HuDSON, August, 18SS. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 THE COMMENTAEY. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 Introductokv 11 
 
 I. — Saul of Tarsus 15 
 
 II. — The Conversion of Paul. 19 
 
 III. — Paul the Missionary 27 
 
 'IV. — Paul the Writer 35 
 
 v.— The Pagan World 42 
 
 VI. — Paul's Kemedy for Sin 52 
 
 VII. — Conclusion 76 
 
 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 
 
 I. — The Evolution of Sin (new version.) 85 
 
 I. — The Epistle to the Romans (King James' version.) 89 
 
 II. — God's Dealing with the Heathen 100 
 
 III. — Justification nv Faith Ill 
 
 IV.— The Old Testament Doctrine of Faith 12."i 
 
 V, — The End of Sacrifice 130 
 
 V. — (Continncd.) Pauls Doctrine of the Fall 130 
 
 VI. — Paul's Doctrine of Redemption 143 
 
 VII.— The Battle ok Like 150 
 
viii COX T K NTS. 
 
 OH A p. PAGC 
 
 VIII. — More than Conquerors 160 
 
 IX. — Paul's Theodicy 172 
 
 X. — Paul's Missionary Argument 182 
 
 XL — Our Debt to Judaism 189 
 
 XII.— Paul's Law of Ethics 199 
 
 XIII. — The Christian State 206 
 
 XIV. — Paul's Principles of Casuistry 21.3 
 
 XV. and XVI. — Conclusion 223 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 NO. PAOB 
 
 1. St. Paul in the Market Place Frontispiece 
 
 2. Grecian Peasant 29 
 
 3. Roman Plebeians 29 
 
 4. Roman Library 33 
 
 x5. Tombs Along the Appian Way 41 
 
 6'. Rome (view from citadel. Coliseum in distance, Foriim in the background). 42 
 
 7. A Greek Symposium 45 
 
 8. The Gladiators (" Pcjllice Verso." From the painting by Gerome) 46 
 
 9. Grecian Ladies and Attendant 47 
 
 10. Coin of Nero 48 
 
 //. Rome in the Time of Augustus C^sar 82 
 
 ]^. Roman Soldiers 83 
 
LIFE AND EPISTLES 
 
 OF 
 
 PAUL THE APOSTLE 
 
 BEING 
 
 INTRODUCTORY TO COMMENTARY ON THE 
 PAULINE EPISTLES. 
 
A ^ 
 
 ji> 
 
 Jf^ 
 
 /^ 
 
 n 
 
The Life and Letters of the Apostle Paul. 
 
 INTEODUCTOET. 
 
 THERE have arisen in certain eras of the world's history some rare geniuses 
 who, gifted above other men, appear to be in a certain sense revel ators 
 of truth, and who have furnished the world with the raw material of 
 thought on which for centuries after it has expended all its energies, weaving, 
 spinning, embroidering, making up, in short, into divers fabrics. Such a man 
 was Moses, to whom the world owes nearly all it has ever learned concerning 
 pohtical economy. Such a man was Plato, from whom, as from a deep and 
 exhaustless well, modern metaphysics still draws a great part of its supplies. All 
 astronomy centers around the one law which Newton was the first to enunciate, 
 as the planets center around the sun. Thus, there are men who belong to no 
 age or nation, but to all time and to all mankind, who are never otherwise 
 than modern. 
 
 Whatever place religious revei'ence may award to Saul of Tarsus among 
 inspired prophets, whatever Church-given honors skeptical philosophy may deny 
 him, this much is at lea.st undeniable, that no man of any era, except him whom 
 he delighted to call Master, has done so much to mould the thoughts and pattern 
 the character of men, and so to shape the very framework of our modern civili- 
 zation. There is a bigotry of skepticism ; and doubless there are men, not a 
 few, who turn from any study of Paul's wiitings and any measure of his influ- 
 ence with contempt, as there are those who would refuse to consider what were 
 the teachings of Voltaire and Diderot, and their influence on the human race. 
 But the truly rational philosopher, who is really, interested in considering what 
 are the influences which, in point of fact, have proved most potent in shaping 
 the religious opinions and inspiring the religious life of mankind, can hardly 
 fail to look with syjecial interest on the literary remains of Paul ; while, to the 
 great body of devoutly thoughtful men and women, those remains are immeasur- 
 ably more than a curious contribution to the religious literature of mankind ; 
 they are a divine guide and a powerful inspiration, whose effect upon their souls 
 is unlike that produced by any modern writer however devout, however eloquent. 
 
 The life of the great Apostle was not uneventful ; but it was not the life 
 of Paul which has widely affected mankind, nor is it the story of his life which/ 
 has for us the greatest interest. What Paul did time has long since undone.' 
 The Churches which he founded have crumbled with the cities in which they 
 were established, and with the civilization in the midst of which they were 
 placed. Their very sites are unknown. The nature of their organization is to 
 the present day a matter of hot dispute among contending ecclesiastics, each 
 anxious to secure for his own denomination the honor and the influence of the 
 
12 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 Apostle's name. Full of dramatic interest as is the story of his labors, his 
 journeys, and his sufferings, it is not more so than that of many a later disciple. 
 He traveled less than St. Francis Xavier ; lived in times less tempestuous than 
 Luther. The materials for any connected biography of him are very scant. 
 There is absolutely nothing which histoiy can account reliable, except the book 
 of the Acts, and the incidental allusions which his letters afford. All that 
 imagination can do to depict in glowing colors the exterior circumstances of 
 Paul's life, M. Renan has done with a power as marked as is the singular weak- 
 ness which characterizes his estimate of the character and his analysis of the 
 teachings of the great Apostle. All that painstaking research and elaborate 
 scholarship can do to carry the student back from the nineteenth century to the 
 age in which Paul lived and labored, Conybeare and Howson have done with 
 a pre-Raphaelite tideUty, which leaves them v^dthout a rival, and should preserve 
 them even from imitation. In short, so many and so able are the pens which 
 have narrated the story of the Apostle's outer life, that to repeat it would be 
 a work of the purest literary supererogation. 
 
 But though what Paul did has long since yielded to the corrosive work of 
 time, what he taught is immeasurably more influential now than at any previous 
 period in the world's history. The letters which he addressed to the Churches 
 within the sphere of his itinerant ministry, and which certainly they and prob- 
 ably he never anticipated would outlive the age to which they were addressed, 
 or answer any other purpose than to meet the specific occasions which called 
 them forth, have survived alike the persecutions of an irate age, and the more 
 dangerous embraces of a corrupt one. They are the acknowledged source of 
 modem theology, and the disciples are the first to confess that they have never 
 equaled their master. The stream has never been as pellucid as the fountain. 
 Claimed as the authorized exponent of their various systems by contending schools, 
 they rise far above the clash and din of all theologic warfare. Discussed, debated, 
 commented on by innumerable erudite theologians, who have exhausted scholarly 
 ingenuity in criticism and analysis, theyueceive their best interpretation in the 
 unwritten commentaries which are evolved in the hearts of the unlearned,' out 
 of their own spiritual experience of the truth. Enunciating principles far in 
 ' a"crvance of the age to which they were primarily addressed, the broad charity 
 and enlarged freedom of religious thought and feeling which characterize the 
 present era are but the tardy efflorescence of the seed-thoughts which they con- 
 tain ; thoughts planted by the Apostle's hands in the first century and now at 
 last awakening into larger life, after eighteen centuries of tardy growth or 
 winter sleep. 
 
 There is, however, one aspect in which the life of Paul is scarcely less 
 important than his teaching. Philosophy may be purely intellectual. It is not 
 necessary to know the life of Euclid to comprehend the science of Greometry, nor 
 that of Solon to understand the spirit of his legislation, nor that of Newton or 
 Kepler to comprehend their discoveries, nor that of Aristotle to weigh aright 
 his philosophic teaching. But religion is not a mere philosophy ; it is a life. 
 To comprehend what Thomas a Kempis and Madame Guyon wrote, or even to 
 understand adequately the writings of Augustine or Arminius, it is necessary 
 to know the writer. For religious philosophy — at least that which takes any 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 13 
 
 hold on human hearts — is the evolution of a real experience. Augustine's Con- 
 fessions let us into the secret of Augustine's Theology. Luther the monk was 
 tlie father of Luther the reformer. Loyola devoured romances in his boyhood 
 that he might enact them in his manhood, and served in early life his mistress with 
 the same chivalric enthusiasm and the same zealous intolerance of rivals which 
 he afterwards carried into the service of his Church and his order. The roots 
 of Calvinism are easily traced to the severe and even austere character which 
 gave to the young Romish lawyer before his conversion, and while yet a boy 
 in college, the title of "The Accusative." To understand the teaching of Paul 
 we must understand Paul himself. To read aright his philosophy it is necessary 
 to decipher somewhat his religious experience. For his philosophy was evolved 
 out of his experience. Indeed the richest and most inspiring of his writings are 
 those in which he depicts the life within. That he is the most powerful religious- 
 writer of any age is, in part at least, due to the fact that he is so naively 
 egotistical. In his case, to read the writer we must read the man. The life 
 interprets the teaching. 
 
 What, then, I have to ask the impartial reader is, that he will lay aside as 
 far as possible any previous theological predilection, as I also pledge myself to 
 do, and accompany me in this introductory study into the life and literary 
 remains of Paul, not to find buttresses to support a favorite system of theology, 
 nor yet to gather ammunition with which to bombard the system of a theolog- 
 ical adversary ; but for the purpose of ascertaining by a calm, and as far as 
 possible an independent investigation, what is the secret power of these ancient 
 letters, what it is that has made them a source of comfort, of strength, and 
 of real salvation to so many souls, what light they throw on the great problems 
 of religious thought and experience of to-day, what is the fundamental concep- 
 tion of religion, as a life, which they afford, and what, above all, they contain 
 of real assistance for ourselves in solving the great mystery and conducting to- 
 a successful issue the great campaign of life. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 SAUL OF TARSUS. 
 
 "VTEAR wliovo tlio soutliorn coast of Asia Minor and the western cnust of Syria intersect, 
 -i-^ the Taurus mountains, retiring from the sea, leave the fertile and once famous plains 
 of Cilicia. In the center of this j^lain, irrigated by the clear cold waters of the Cydnus, 
 flowing fresh from the snowy reservoirs of the surrounding peaks, formerly stood the 
 capital of the Province, the city of Tarsus. " No mean city," Paul tells us, with pardon- 
 able pride, was this home of his childhood. It was indeed one of the chief cities of Greece. 
 Its commerce rivaled that of Corinth, its schools those of Athens and Alexandria. 
 
 In every Grecian city there was a Jewish (quarter. In every Greek community were 
 intermixed Jewish citizens ; sometimes attracted from their native land by hope of gain, 
 ofteher expatriated by the fortunes of war. Industrious, but rarely generous ; prosperous, 
 but never honored ; virtuous, but haughty ; their religion a bigotry and their patriotism an 
 intolerance, they lived, as after eighteen centuries of dispersion they still live, a .separate 
 caste in the communities in which they were compelled to make what they accounted but a 
 temporary home. For witli a faith, which time has not weakened, they looked forward 
 to the speedy restoration of Israel to the land of their nativity. 
 
 Among these Jewish residents of the city of Cilicia were the parents of Paul, both 
 Hebrews, both Pharisees of the straiter .sect.' An eccle.siastical tradition reports them as 
 having emigrated from Gischala in Galilee. The foreigner carried away captive by Roman 
 arms became a Roman slave. The Roman sla\'e emancipated became a Roman citizen. 
 The son inherited his citizen.ship. To .scourge him, to submit him to any personal violence, 
 to deny him the right of appeal from any magistrate, under the Republic, to the people, 
 under the Empire, to the Emperor, was an unpardonable offense against Roman law.'' For 
 the Roman, careless of individual life, was never oblivious of national honor. Paul, 
 though born of Hebrew parentage in a Greek city, was a Roman citizen— free-born.^ That 
 his parents purchased this privilege at a great price or earned it by a great service is 
 possible but not proljable. That they were among the captives carried away from their 
 native land by the triumphant arms of Pompey is a more reasonable .surmise. That Saul 
 knew Roman servitude more intimately than as a mere observer, his subsequent writings 
 indicate.* 
 
 In this city of Tarsus — composite in population, Roman in government, Greek in 
 language, in philo.sophic thought and in social civilization — young Saul spent the first ten 
 or twelve years of his life. He could hardly have done .so and not have imbibed something 
 of (ireek thought, caught up Greek proverbs in the street, learned, despite him.self, the Greek 
 language, and become familiar with Grecian life, if not with Grecian literature. But all 
 the Greek schooling he received was, we may be sure, o f that sort which a boy catches on 
 
 ' Phil, iii : 5 ; Acts xxvi : 5. 
 
 ' ISee Alford on A('ts xxv : ii ; McClintoch and Strong'.s lye. art. Citizen and Appeal ; 8inith'.s Die. of Ant.; arts. 
 apjxllatis ; libertines ; Livy i : 26 ; ii : 8 ; iii : 55. ' Acts xvi : 37 ; xxii : 25-29 ; xxv : 11, 12. 
 
 * Both by his frequent references to slavery as an illustration, see Romans i : 1 ; vi : 16, 20 ; compare 
 Ephesians ii : 12, 13 ; and by his evident sympathy with and appreciation of the position of slaves, Ephes. vi : 5, 8; 
 Col. iii : 22-25 ; Philemon 12, 16. 
 
16 PAUL'S LIFE AND LETTERS. 
 
 the street, despite his fother's prohibition and hi;^ fathers care. To the Pharisees the 
 Greeks were heathen and the heathen were accursed of God. Sooner far might a Puritan 
 instruct his boy in the baneful philosophy of Voltaire and Diderot ; sooner far a devout 
 papist teach his son the theology of Luther and of Calvin, than an honest Pharisee give his 
 diild a glimpse of the infidel literature of Socrates and of Plato. Young Saul went to the 
 parish school wliich was attached to every synagogue. He learned by rote the JeAxish law 
 and something of the commentaries of the scribes thereon. Rabbinical precepts require 
 every parent to teach his child a trade. The plains of Cilicia were famed for their goats 
 whose hair, woven into coarse fabrics, were an important article of commerce. Young Saul 
 learned to weave and spin ; and in later life often worked with his own hands, providing 
 for himself the support which lie proudly refused to receive from the churches, and some- 
 times using his trade to introduce himself and his doctrine into Jewish circles from which 
 otherwise his apostleship luight perhaps have excluded him.' 
 
 So quietly passed the boyhood days of that life destined to be so eventful. Beside 
 father, mother and sister, — that sister whose son in after years saved his life from 
 the hand of the assassin,''— Saul had other kinsfolk, some of whom entered the Christian 
 church before him.^ But whether his father and mother, following him, were ever nvim- 
 bered among the disciples of Christ, or whether he had to attest his fidelity to the Master 
 by leaving father and mother to follow Christ, or whether tliey did not live to mourn what 
 they would have regarded as the apostasy of their son, we do not know. It must be 
 accounted a singular circiunstance that one whose feelings were so warm, eind who uttered 
 them so fully, has not in any of his writings left any word by which we can trace the 
 history of his parents ; such, however, is the case. 
 
 His father intended him ff)r a Jewish Rabbi, and it was not possible for a Greek city to 
 afford the necessary education. Saul was still a mere boy,* when he went up to Jerusalem 
 to complete his studies under the instruction of the most famous of Jewish Rabbis 
 — Gamaliel I. 
 
 Pharisaism, the religion of Palestine, was divided into two conflicting schools, that 
 of Hillel and that of Shammai. The one insisted on a literal compliance of the law, the 
 other on a spiritual apprehension of it ; the one on Sabbath observance and the washing of 
 hands, the other on faith in God and love toward man ; tlie one educated the Pharisees 
 who sought the life of Christ, the other taught that Simon who feted him, that Nicodemus 
 who came to him by night, that Joseph of Arimathea, in whose tomVj he was buried. The 
 one in short M'as pie Jesuitism, the other the Jansenism of the first century. Gamaliel 
 occupied a position midway between these contending factions. He lived in the last days 
 of Judaism. The conscience of the nation had already grown lax. Pharisaism had degen- 
 erated from a faith to a form, from a religion to a ritual. In theology Gamaliel was a 
 disciple of his grandfather Hillel ; in spirit he was more akin to the rival school 
 of Shammai. 
 
 He insisted on the rigorous observance of the Sabbath, but he relaxed the rigidity 
 of the petty regulations which encumbered it. He never rose so far above sectional 
 
 •Acts xviii : 1-3 ; xx:34. XKTjvoiroids is translated by Luther, "carpet maker," liy Miohaelis and Hatilein, 
 " mechanical instrument maker," and by Chrysostom " worker in leather," or " sewer of tents." The interpretation 
 given above is, however, the one now generally accepted. See Davidson's Intro, vol. II., p. 70 ; and Smith's Bib. 
 Dictionary, article Paul. » Act xxiii : 16. ' Romans xvi : 7, 11. 
 
 * So we judge, not only from the fact that Jewish children were sent away t<^i school at the age of 12, but also 
 from the declaration of Paul : " avareepayevos &i tv rrf jroAei Taiirr) jropo Toiis noSas roMoAirjA," (Acts xxii : 3), very well 
 translated in the English version, " hrmigJit up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel." See also his statement before 
 Afirippa, Acts xxvi : 4. 
 
SAUL OF TARSUS. 17 
 
 > 
 
 prejudice as to recognize in all humanity the cliildren of God, but he endeavored to curb 
 
 the spirit which treated as accursed those in whose veins the blood of Abraham did not 
 
 flow.' His teacliing was rigid, but his disposition was humane. Comparing him with men 
 
 of more modern times we should describe him in a word as the Erasmus of his day. Like 
 
 Erasnms, living in a corrupt age, a member of a corrupt church, like Erasmus he had 
 
 neither the conscience to commit himself to a party wliose hollow insincerity shocked his 
 
 moral sense, nor the courage to disavow it and do it battle. A manly heroism might have 
 
 made him the first of the apostles. Timidity made him only the last of the Jewish Rabbis.* 
 
 At the feet of this conservative theologian ^ of an already efl'ete religion, Saul received 
 his chief religious instruction. He was taught — this much the literary remains of his age 
 make clear to us — to believe that Jerusalem was to be the mistress of the world, and the 
 Greeks and Romans the servants of the Hebrew ; taught that the children of Abraham 
 alone were the people of Gotl ; taught to look upon the Gentile, as, in the sixteenth century, 
 the Church taught the devout Spaniard to look upon the Jew ; taught to despise the 
 heathen races and to pride himself upon his Abrahamic blood ; taught, in the words 
 of a Hebrew Rabbi, that " a single Israelite is worth more than all the people who have 
 been or shall be." If in his eagerness for study he acquainted himself with Greek and 
 Roman literature, it was only as a modern Jesuit might study the literature of Protestant- 
 ism, or the student at Andover or Princeton the writings of Auguste Comte. If he passed 
 a Gentile in the street he gathered his garments close about him that he might not suffer 
 the pollution of his touch. He bought no meats in open market lest he might be defiled 
 by Gentile contact. He sat at no table where Greek or Roman sat. He waited with im- 
 patient faith for the day, when, humbled, they would sue for mercy at the feet of the 
 triumphant Jew, waited, sure that this day, long prophesied, was not far distant. He was 
 taught, too, that religion consists in obedience — obedience exact and literal to a law of petty 
 and perplexing details. He became the slave of a tjTannical conscience, and measured his 
 life by the exactness with which he fulfilled every precept, not only of the Mosaic law, but 
 of the elaborate traditions which had been superadded to it. He gave tithes of all he 
 possessed. He prayed three times every day, as the Arab still does, kneeling where the 
 hour found him and facing the rising of the sun. He fasted twice in everj^ week. He 
 washed with scrupulous care before every meal." 
 
 True, Gamaliel relaxed somewhat the burdensomeness of the Pharisaic ritual. True, 
 he modified, by his humane spirit, the precepts of a code which commanded, concerning 
 the Gentile, " Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy." But Saul's mind was 
 too logical to accept half truths, his courage too undaunted and too warlike to content 
 itself with half measures. There are some souls to whom compromises are inherently 
 abhorent, whose intensive energy forbids them from ever recognizing any truth in the 
 
 ' He decreed that all persons called on the Sabbath to assist either at hostile invasions, or inundation, or 
 fires, or at the*falling dow-n of houses, or even at childbirth, might walk two thousand paces in any direction ! and 
 decreed to the heathen poor the same right to glean as that possessed by the Jews. See Kitto Bib. Cy.., art. 
 Gamaliel. Conybeare and Howsen by confounding him with Gamaliel II., his grandson, have made some curious 
 mistakes, and have erroneously measured his character. 
 
 ' It is a rabbinical proverb, "With the death of Gamaliel the reverence for the law ceased, and purity and 
 abstinence died away." 
 
 ' Gamaliel's famous interposition on behalf of the apostles (Acts v : 3.3-39), has given him an undeserved 
 reputation among Christian Mrriters. This is not, however, if the reader will consider it, a plea for toleration or 
 liberty of conscience at all, but only for peace, by one constitutionally afraid of conflict, and is based on no broad 
 principles of human rights, but on the baldest possible fatalism. 
 
 * Compare Acts xxvi : 5, with Luke xviii : II, 12, and Mark vii : 3. For an account of Pharisaism see Abbott's 
 Jesus of Nazareth, Chaps, xiv : xv : and zx. 
 
18 PAUL'S LIFE AND LETTERS. ^ 
 
 doubtful motto, " In medio tutissimus ibis.''' Such a man was Saul. What he believed he 
 believed with his whole heart ; what he did he did with all his might. Whatever he was, 
 he must be sell-consistent. 
 
 Between the extreme of a rigorous Pharisaism and the utmost liberty of an enfranchised 
 soul there is no middle ground for such a man to occupy. He drank in the teachings of 
 the School of Hillel without imbibing the liberal spirit of Gamaliel. He accepted the 
 precepts of his teacher's rigid theology, while his whole soul rebounded from the timid 
 conservatism which modified them to suit the degeneracy of the times. We have seen 
 Luther, in an age when monkish devotion was an idle farce, laying aside his ambitions, and 
 even his studies, and entering the monastery to go on its behalf as a beggar, from door to 
 door ; we have seen Father Hyacinthe becoming a bare-footed Carmelite and submitting him- 
 self to all the privations of the most austere order of an ascetic religion, austerities which 
 enter into the very soul of him who really feels the humiliation which his ascetic life 
 symbolizes. The Pharisaism, which to the age was a form, was to Paul a faith ; to him 
 the ritual was a real religion. The earnestness of his nature was never in after life more 
 apparent than in these student days. He distanced all competitors.* In his own sect, 
 despite his youth, he became widely famous.^ His zeal made him a marked man in an age 
 when the fires of a real faith burned low and nothing was left upon the altar but the 
 smoldering ashes of the piety of the past. 
 
 And yet with all his scrupulousness he knew no peace. An aroused conscience only 
 irritates itself by endeavoring to conform to a ritualistic religion. Saul's impetuous tem- 
 perament continually broke over the bounds which his conscience set. His penances never 
 were sufficient to satisfy his own self-condemnation. At the very time when to others he 
 seemed blameless he was spurring himself to a more vigorous performance of duty, a more 
 painful penance for sin, and a greater zeal in religion.^ The half faith and cold inaction 
 of actual Pharisaism served but as a spur to his morbid conscience. His indignation with 
 others reacted upon himself. Gloomy, austere, self-contained, with warm affections con- 
 tinually trampled under foot, with a faith false but fervent, a conscience blind but relent- 
 less, a religion intolerant toward others, but equally intolerant toward himself, with convic- 
 tions petrified into bigotry and an enthusiasm flaming into fanatical zeal, Saul was well 
 fitted by his narrow creed and his relentless sincerity to light those fires of persecution 
 which it has taken the blood of so many thousands of martyrs to extinguish. 
 
 ' Galatians i : 14. 3 Acts xxvi : 4, 5. 
 
 • Compare Phil, iii : 6 with Romans Vllth Chap, passim. Whether the latter describes Paul's experience 
 before or after his conversion is a hotly contested point. It doubtless receives its coloring from his Pharisaic 
 experience. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE CONVERSION OF PAUL. 
 
 THE first step in the transformation of Saul of Tarsus into Paul the Apostle, was the 
 influence exerted upon him by the martyrdom of Stephen. The germ of all Paul's 
 sub.^equent teaching is to be found in Stephen's speech.' A study of his character, and an 
 analysis of his speech, will lielp the ctireful student to a comprehension of the life, character 
 and writings of the great apostle. 
 
 The differences between the two sections of the Christian church had their origin in 
 analagous differences in the Jewish Church. The rift began in Judea which later grew 
 broad between the Christian churches. The dispersion of the Jews had already begun 
 before the death of Christ ; the children of the dispersed Jews, coming back to their native 
 land, brought back witli them a broader culture and a more generous spirit than their 
 provincial neighbors possessed or could comprehend. Among the four hundred and fifty 
 synagogues which Rabbinical tradition assure, us blessed the city of Jerusalem, the people 
 of nearly every province had their own sanctuary. The Libertines,'' expelled from Italy 
 by Tiberius, the dark-liued proselytes returning to the home of their fathers from Northern 
 Africa, the emigrants from Alexandria bringing with them from the dreamy atmosphere 
 of Egypt the mystical philosophy of Philo, the children of the dispersed Jews scattered 
 throughout Cilicia and the province of Asia, each had their own synagogue. Untrammeled 
 by the inflexible prejudices of the Judeans, their minds insensibly broadened by their 
 intercourse with Gentile nations, these naturalized citizens of Judea furnished the nascent 
 religion with most of its first adherents. Prominent among these converts from the Grecian 
 proselytes ' was Stephen. He held a subordinate office in the little church, as steward 
 of its poor fund. That ecclesiasticism which forbids all preaching except by duly" appointed 
 ofiicials was, in the simplicity of the early Church, unknown. Under the ancient Jewish 
 hiw, whoever felt the truth burdening his heart was free to utter it. No ordination was 
 required to constitute a prophet. In tlie Synagogue service the sermon was rarely preached 
 by the minister. Whoever had a word of exhortation to the people spoke. The formalism 
 of a later age had not yet been imposed upon a service which inherited the spirit of liberty 
 from the religion it supplanted. Thus Stephen became a popular and powerful preacher 
 of the new religion. He was a man of devoted piety, of intense moral convictions, and 
 of that native grace of character, of manner and of diction, which, combined with clear 
 conceptions of truth, and a resolute adherence to it, never fails to give its pos.sessor power 
 over his more pliable fellows.* The clearness of his moral vision made him im])atient 
 of religious pretense, and his impetuous temper made him unguarded in rebuking it. He 
 habitually attended the synagogues of the Jews of foreign birth, and availed himself of the 
 opportunities which the service afforded to proclaim the advent of the long-expected Messiah, 
 
 ' Acts vii, Prel. Note. 
 
 • For different interpretations of the word see Smith's Bible Dictionary, article " Libertines." 
 
 • This name indicates that he was of Greek descent ; and the brief description of his ftuieral rites that his 
 friends were chiefly proselj'tes, Acts viii : 2 ; compare Acts vi : 5. 
 
 • Acts vi : 8, XapiTo? not ttio-ti?, " grace " not " faith." The use of the word here as in Luke iv : 22, indicates 
 the natural quality rather than a divine and special gift But Alford contra. 
 
20 PAUL'S LIFE AND LETTERS. 
 
 and in terms so bold as to provoke continuous and bitter controversy.' Of his teaching we 
 have indeed but very brief intimations. But both the character of the accusation lodged 
 against him and the nature of his defense are such as to indicate very clearly the spirit 
 of the man and of his teaching. He was brought before the Sanhedrim charged with the 
 offense for which Christ had been condemned to death — blasphemy. The historian tells us 
 that witnesses were suborned. History, however, has fulfilled the prophecy imputed to 
 him ; and there is no good reason to suppose that the charges were not substantially true. 
 He was accused of having declared that Jesus of Nazareth would destroy the Temple and 
 change the customs which Moses had delivered to the nation.^ The Temple has long since 
 been destroyed and its solemn ritualistic service supplanted by the cross of Christ. Stephen's 
 only offense consisted in foreseeing the future and striving to prepare the nation for it. He 
 only preached, perhaps enigmatically, what Paul afterward declared so clearly, that Christ 
 was the end of the law.^ Indeed, in his defense, the prisoner did not deny the substantial 
 truth of the accusation. He proceeded to reiterate his doctrine and to prove it by a recital 
 of Jewish history from the Jewish sacred writings. 
 
 The favor and blessing of God (such was the substance of his address) had not been 
 confined to Judea and its people. God appeared to Abraham in a land of idolatry (Acts 7 : 
 verse 2) ; caused his seed to dwell in a nation of idolaters (verses 6, 10) ; educated Moses 
 in pagan philosophy (verse 22) ; called him from a sojourn in a pagan land to become 
 Israel's deliverer (verses 29, 30) ; appeared long before the Temple, or the Holy City, to 
 Moses in Midian, to Joseph in bondage, to Israel in the wilderness (verses 2, 9, 10, 30, 33). 
 David was a man after God's own heart, but David was forbidden to build the Temple 
 (verse 46). Both David and Solomon declared that no Temple could hold the Most High 
 (verse 48). From their origin to their dispersion the Israelitish people had steadily resisted 
 God's holy will, by their repudiation of Moses, by their defection at Mt. Sinai, by their 
 sub.sequent idolatry, by their persecution of the prophets (verses 9, 27, 39, 41, 42, 43, 
 51, 52). It was neither strange nor blasphemous doctrine which he preached, that they 
 had now rejected the Messiah and were rejected of God. Their whole history illustrated 
 and enforced it. I have said that the germs of Paul's teaching are to be found in Stephen's 
 speech. The curious reader may verify the statement by comparing the martyr's last 
 address with Paul's first reported sermon (Acts chap. 7 : with Acts chap. 13) : or the doc- 
 trines of the former with such declarations from Paul's single Epistle to the Romans as 
 those in Rom. 3 : 9-19 ; 5 : 14 ; 9 : 7-16. 
 
 At first Stephen's intent was not very clear. But as he proceeded and the full signifi- 
 cance of his address appeared more clearly the faces of his accusers contracted with passion. 
 Stephen saw the change and perceived its significance, broke off in his address, and, by one 
 of the sudden transitions which is the peculiar privilege of saintly and fervid souls, passed 
 from the contemplation of the visible to that of the invisible world. The court-room and 
 the angry assembly faded from his sight, and another and sublime judgment bar openeil 
 before him. " Behold," he cried, " 1 see the heavens opened and the Son of man standing 
 on the right hand of God." The whole assembly counted this declaration as a confession — 
 nay, as an act of blasphemy ! The court was transformed into a mob. Marcellus, the 
 successor of Pilate, was a more complaisant ruler, and winked at disorders which did not 
 directly threaten the authority of Rome. The mob felt little fear of either interference or 
 punishment from Roman legions. Without waiting for deliberation or even pronouncing 
 
 ' Acts vi : 9. > Acts vi : 11-14. 
 
 ' Romans x : 4. End in time and in aim ; the accomplishment and so the completion of the law, which has 
 fulfilled its purpose and no longer remains, at least no longer lives. 
 
CONVERSION OF PAUL. 21 
 
 a formal venlict, the infuriated people seized the unresisting martyr and dragged him with- 
 out the city walls, there to stone him to death. The witnesses were required by Jewish law 
 to hurl the first stones; Saul of Tarsus took their tunics in his keeping. He had listened 
 to the address, shared with the mob its anger at Stephen's interpretation of Jewish history, 
 and was a willing witness to his death. 
 
 But to such a man as Saul there is no victory in killing an adversary. He only is con- 
 (juered who is converted. The death of the speaker only fastened his words ineffaceably in 
 Saul's mind. He hated them too intensely to forget them. That Stephen should brave the 
 indignation of the people, the judgments of the Jewish Supreme Court, and the punishment 
 wliich the law of God denounced against him for his blasphemy, and in the very hour 
 of his death, triumph over his antagonists, converted Saul's anger into a passion. He was 
 determined, at whatever cost, that these heretics should yield to him. He became exceed- 
 ingly mad against them. He went from house to house in search of their conventicles. 
 He spared neither man nor woman. At many a cruel scourging in the synagogue he pre- 
 sided. He added jeer and insult to the punishments which he inflicted. As a wild beast 
 infuriated, he ravaged the young church. He endeavored in vain to compel its disciples to 
 renounce their Lord. More than one followed Stephen to share with him the martyr's 
 coronation.' And still the new religion grew apace, and its adherents, fleeing as the Lord 
 had bid them from this new danger, carried with them the Gospel into other communities. 
 Every blow on the red-hot iron struck out sparks for the illumination of the surrounding 
 darkness. The people wearied of this perpetual controversy. The priests, Sadducees at 
 heart, and sha'ring with their Roman patrons the Roman indifference respecting all religion, 
 looked with almost equal contempt on the zeal which inflicted and the zeal which suffered 
 martyrdom. They wanted peace. Saul kept them in a fever of perpetual excitement. 
 They cared far less about religion than about their places. These irregular proceedings 
 endangered their harmonious relations with the Roman Court. They were, as priests are 
 apt to be, a lazy, self-indulgent, good-natured caste, inclined always to cry out, " Peace ! 
 Peace ! " where there was no Peace. Paul's religious faith was a rebuke to their skepticism, 
 his zeal a rebuke to their lazy indiff"erence, and, if we may judge anything of his char- 
 acter then by its development afterward, his rebuke \va? not always a silent one. The 
 priesthood was shamefully degenerate and corrupt. Paul at least was honest, and to a cor- 
 rupt priesthood an honest adherent is more obnoxious than an open foe. 
 
 We have already had occasion to compare Saul of Tarsus w^th Loyola. In character and 
 in tlie circumstances of their positions there is much resemblance. Both were fanatically 
 zealous adherents of a false religion. Both lived in an age when universal skepticism had 
 eaten out the heart of the national worship and left it a bloodless formalism. Both pos- 
 sessed a military impatience of insubordination. To both heresy was the capital crime. 
 There is no reason to suppose that young Saul was any more popular in Jerusalem than 
 young Loyola in Spain. When, therefore, not sjvtisfied with scattering heresy, but deter- 
 mined to extirpate it, he applied to the High Priest for letters to the Synagogue of Damas- 
 cus, that he might prosecute his religious campaign there, I imagine the High Priest was 
 only too glad to grant them, only too glad to be rid of one who, even as a Jew, was "a 
 pestilent fellow " and " turned the world upside down." 
 
 Yet it is certain that Saul was far from being at peace in his own soul. The kindli- 
 ness of a nature always tenderly .sensitive, and the better though but half-conscious 
 convictions of a conscience not wholly perverse, remonstrated with liiin. There was that 
 
 ' Acts viii : 3 ; xxii : 4 ; xxvi : 10, 11 and Alford thereon ; I. Tim. i : 13 and Alford thereon- 
 
22 PAUL'S LIFE AND LETTERS. 
 
 in the almost audacious heroism of such a man as Stephen which ccnild not fail to awaken 
 all the better impulses of Saul's kindred soul. The very radicalism of the martyr's 
 speech affected the tiery persecutor far more than a more cautious utterance could have 
 done. Tlie stern denunciations of the degenerate age chimed in only too well with his 
 own perhaps not unuttered sentiments. There were times when he questioned with himself 
 whether he might not have read the prophets wrongly, whether the subjugation of the 
 Gentile world was not to be accomplished in some method other than he had been led to 
 expect, whether it were possible that indeed the hope of Israel had been fulfilled in the 
 advent of its long-promised Messiah, and the hope of the world was to be realized tlirough 
 the cross on which he had been crucified. He who felt so keenly in every new martyrdom 
 a new defeat sometimes felt, perhaps, though he did not acknowledge it even to himself, 
 that the Great Martyr was in fact a victor even in his death. Implicitly accepting tlie faith 
 of his age in the influence of evil spirits, he perhaps attributed these doubts and forebod- 
 ings to the suggestions of Satan, and banished them resolutely from his mind only to be 
 haunted by them on the morrow. The more that, despite himself, his mind secretly mis- 
 gave him, the more he gave himself to this work of persecution, striving with the same 
 blow to extirpate the heresy without and that which in his inner consciousness he recognized 
 in his own soul. A resolute and self-willed man is often thus embittered by arguments which 
 he cannot answer, and endeavors to compensate for the conscious weakness of his cause by 
 the virulent vigor with which he maintains it. Every new assault upon the nascent 
 religion reacted with terrible force upon the soul of the self-tortured persecutor. Through- 
 out this period of turbulent zeal, he was fighting against his own better nature, his own 
 interior but unconfessed convictions of the truth. 
 
 Something such I conceive to have been Saul's state of mind when he entered upon 
 the road which leads from the most sacred to the most ancient city of the world. It is by 
 the slow processes of Oriental travel a six days' journey. It gave the fiery zealot time, and 
 the past few weeks or months had furnished him with abundant food for thought. During 
 these hours of comparative repose all the old doubts returned in ten-fold force. The 
 patient faces of the martyred men and women attesting by their lives their love for Jesus 
 haunted him. All the testimonies they had adduced from Scripture, and the weightier 
 testimonies which they had produced by the purity of their lives and the quiet heroism 
 of their uncomplaining sufferings and death, martialled themselves before him. He felt, 
 as never before, that the resolute action of his life was only a mask to hide the weakness 
 and irresolution and indecision within. It needed but one striking and startling testimony 
 to turn the trembling scales of his mind, now held almost in equipoise. That one last 
 testimony God vouchsafed. He that left Jerusalem a persecutor entered Damascus a 
 Christian. 
 
 It must be frankly confessed that the event which constitutes the turning point in the 
 career and even the character of Paul is involved in some mystery. We have indeed three 
 accounts of the heavenly vision, but they all probably proceed from the same witness, at 
 least there is no evidence that Luke obtained his account from any other quarter. We are 
 not accustomed to place imjilicit credence in stories of supernatural voices, visions, and 
 dreams, however much we may honor the man who imagines that he has enjoyed the 
 privilege not vouchsafed to his more phlegmatic neighbors. That men of a skeptical turn 
 of mind should question the historical accuracy of the account which Paul has given us 
 of his eventful journey, without, however, calling his veracity in question, ought not to 
 surprise us. 
 
 It is, however, to be remembered that the sudden, and, in some respects, mysterious 
 
CONVERSION OF PAUL. 23 
 
 change which converted Saul the persecuting zealot into Paul the persecuted Christian, is 
 not without its frequent parallel in the history of human experience. It is neither his- 
 torically less certain nor intrinsically less crediljle than the conversion of Constantine the 
 heathen Emperor into Constantine the imperial patron of Christianity, Augustine the 
 dissolute rou(5 and mystic philosopher into Augustine the father of theology, Loyola the 
 martial cavalier into Loyola the self-denying and self-torturing monk, Luther the willing 
 slave of an intolerable monastic bondage into Luther the emancipator of Christendom, 
 Bunyan the drunken tinker into Bunyan the poet preacher. These surprising transforma- 
 tions of character are also often believed ])y their subjects to be accompanied, if not pro- 
 duced, by supernatural phenomena. Paul saw a great light and heard a voice from heaven. 
 Constiintine beheld in the meridian the lununous trophy of the cross inscribed with the 
 motto which became thereafter the motto of his life. Loyola in his cave at Manresa saw in 
 the hetivens the hosts of Babylon and those of Jerusalem set in battle array. Luther, 
 climbing Pilate's staircase, heard a voice speaking in audible tones, "The just shall live l)y 
 faith." Even if these conversions were isolated phenomena, it would be necessary for a 
 rational psychology to afford some reasonable interpretation of them. But such is not the 
 case. They are historically more prominent, but not individually more remarkable, than 
 similar changes taking place about us every day. 
 
 In fine, whatever theoretical philosophy might lead us to expect, character is not iii 
 fact a gradual development. It is, on the contrary, subject to changes surprisingly sudden 
 ■and surprisingly radical. Of these transformations there is no more reasonable interpre- 
 tation to be offered than that which is afforded by the faith that our heavenly Father deals 
 directly with his children, that the mind of man is susceptible not only to God's truth but 
 to God himself, that neither the spirit which rested upon Moses nor that Daemon which 
 communed with Socrates is a myth, and that, when the soul is translated into the heaverdy 
 atmosphere and truly " walks with God," it receives the endowment of a new life, and sees 
 with clear vision the truths which were before at best but dindy discerned, " as trees walk- 
 ing." If this indeed be true, the rest is neither incredible on the one hand, nor impor- 
 tant on the other. ^Vliether Paul heard a real voice, or the voice spoke only within his 
 soul ; whether Constantine saw a Cross suspended in the heavens, or whether it was but a 
 vision that entranced him ; whether some invisible spirit really whispered to Luther the 
 golden text of his life, or whether his memory, quickened by God's spirit, was the angel 
 who bore to him the message ; whether, in short, the spiritual result in these and kindred 
 cases is produced by a miraculous appearance and a miraculous voice, or by a no less 
 miraculous impression upon the brain without even the aid of the external symbol, is a 
 question which has so slight and so distant a connection with faith in a living God and 
 a vital religion that it is a marvel that so many hours have been wasted in its discussion. 
 
 The account, as it comes to us, leaves no room, at all events, to doubt either what was 
 the impression produced on Saul or Avhat the result ujuju his character. His journey drew 
 t(jward its end. The ruins of the ancient Roman roads remain to indicate the track he 
 followed. He had traversed the hill country of Judea, passed close by the city of Samaria, 
 where already the ministry, which Christ began in his lifetime, was being prosecuted 
 by Philip and Peter and John,' descended into the plains near the foot of Mount Tabor, 
 cros.sed the Jordan valley a little south of the Sea of Galilee, the scene of Christ's busiest 
 and happiest ministry, pa.s.sed through the environs of the city of Gadara, and journeying 
 thence in a north-easterly direction close along the foot of the eastern spurs of thf anti- 
 
 ' John iii : 40 ; Acts viii : 5, 14. 
 
24 PAUL'S LIFE AND LETTERS. 
 
 Libanus, had already perhaps reached the point where the mountain road descends into 
 the plain, and where, even to-day, sin-cursed and war-riven as that country is, the traveler 
 stops entranced by the view of a valley, tlie floral beauty of whose luxuriant gardens is. 
 enhanced by comparison with the sterile mountain ranges which encompass them. 
 
 It was mid-day. The sun was shining clear and bright from out a cloudless sky. 
 Suddenly a glory, before which the brilliance of the sun paled, as pales the moon before 
 the glory of her stellar Lord, shone athwart their vision. Saul's companions were trans- 
 fixed with wonder and with awe. Saul fell stricken to the ground. A voice addressed 
 to him the question which he had already asked himself a thousand times, but never 
 answered, " Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me 1 " The bitterness of his long-continued 
 battle had prepared him for this hour. And yet, even now, awe-struck as he is, he yields 
 not his life-long convictions to the startling vision, nor accepts what may be but the phan- 
 tasy of the moment without cross-examination. " Who art thou, sire ?"' he cries. The 
 answer, " I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest," is enforced by a sight vouch- 
 safed of the Crucified One whom Stephen had seen standing on the right hand of God — 
 a sight, in the long years that ftjUow, never to be forgotten. At the same time the heavenly 
 voice discloses to him the secret battle of his own soul. " It is hard for thee to kick against 
 the pricks," it cries. The way of true righteousness is always the way of interior peace. 
 Saul's life has been a continual battle against the goads and remonstrances of his own 
 better nature. He has indeed found it hard to kick against the pricks. Now for the first 
 time he experiences a sense of fear. The reading of his heart's secret is more truly awful 
 than voice or vision. Trembling and astonished he instantly yields his allegiance to him 
 who is hencefortli to be his Lord and Master. He neither stops to repine over the lost 
 past nor to count the cost of the self-sacrifices of the future. Yet, even in that trial 
 moment, his Pharisaic faith impregnates his reply : " Lord, what wilt thou have me to 
 do ? " For to him still religion is only a service. 
 
 Stunned by the suddenness of the revelation, blinded by the brilliance of the light, 
 he rose from the earth to grope his way into Damascus, led by the hands of his companions. 
 Never to his dying day did he forget that sublime hour. Never did he entirely recover 
 from its physical eff'ects. To his latest day he carried about with him in the body the 
 marks of the Lord Jesus.'' To his latest day he wrote his letters, with perhaps one single 
 exception, by the hand of an amanuensis.' His friends feeling poignantly the deprivation 
 which he suffered in his weakened eye-sight would, in their zealous love, have fain plucked 
 out their eyes and have given them to him.'' Every student who feels how his own 
 intellectual life depends upon eyes that never weary and that never fail, and who can com- 
 prehend what, to such a nature as Paul, it would be to have the treasures of Greek philoso- 
 phy substantially closed against him, can hardly doubt that it was that thorn in the flesh 
 which he thrice earnestly besought the Lord to remove, but which remained to chasten 
 his spirit and restrain his intellectual pride, the infirmity, which remaining to attest the 
 reality of the heavenly vision, became his glory, because a silent and unanswerable witness 
 to the glory of his Eeedeemer.^ 
 
 For three days he remained without sight, and neither did eat nor drink. There are 
 heart experiences which can never be revealed except to him before whom the heart's most 
 sacred secrets lie open. Such an experience was that of Moses in the sacred Mount, of 
 Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, of Saul in the silence and solitude of that protracted 
 
 ' Lord is a general term of address like the Sire of the French, or the Seignor of the Spanish, and does not 
 necessarily imply any recognition on Saul's part that he is addressing a divine being. 
 
 ' Gal. vi : 17. ^ Romans xvi : 22 ; 2 Thess. iii : 17 ; Gal. vi : 11. * Gal. iv : 14-16. » 2 Cor. xii : 7-10. 
 
CONVERSION OF PAUL. 25- 
 
 luiihiij^lit. It is not ixKssihle for us to draw aside tlie vail beneath which the apostle has hid 
 these most eveuti'nl hours of his life. We cannot honor the curiosity which would seek to 
 do so. We only know that Saul was far from pliable. His will was resolute. His con- 
 victions had not been hastily formed and were not easily abandoned. He inherited the 
 intense patriotism of the Hebrew race, and was bound to his nation and his kinsfolk by 
 ties luird for a heart as affectionate as his to sever. His pride of character was sUilwart ; 
 his love of approbation strong ; his fear of the misinterpretation of his former friends 
 greater than his fear of death. What a struggle it cost him to yield all to his new convic- 
 tion of the truth, as it is in Christ Jesus, we do not know, but we may be sure the struggle 
 was long and bitter. We only know tliat when at length Ananias, encouraged by a vision 
 from God, came to his house to lead him into the light and receive him by baptism into 
 tlie Church he had endeavored to destroy, the transformation was completed, and the 
 persecutor of the Church had already become to the Christian disciple, " brother Saul." 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 PAUL THE MISSIONARY. 
 
 THE three years which immediately follow Paul's conversion are involved in some 
 obscurity. According to one account, we should infer that the convert's zeal involved 
 him in immediate difficulty ; that he returned after a very brief interval to Jerusalem ; 
 that he there became introduced to the fellowship of the Apostles, and labored with them 
 in preaching the Gospel in the Temple and the synagogues of the Holy City, until driven 
 from Judea by persecution.' According to the other account, we should infer that he did 
 not return to Jerusalem for three years, that he then saw only two of the Apostles, and that 
 only for a brief conference, and that he was not really received into full fellowship by the 
 church at Jerusalem till a later period.^ It is not impossible to reconcile these accovints, 
 though it is impossible to tell with any certainty which of the various hypothetical recon- 
 ciliations which have been proposed is the correct one. Enough, however, is told to make 
 tolerably plain the general course of his history, though not the details of his life. It is 
 clear that he did not yet fully understand the commission which had been given to him, 
 and the records which have come down to us tell the story not of his life, but of his 
 mission. 
 
 He was baptized at once.' As yet there were no conditions attached to membership in 
 the new community, except a profession of repentance for sin and faith in Jesus of Nazareth 
 as the long-promised Messiah. The Sabbath following his baptism Paul, to the surprise 
 alike of Jew and Christian, preached in the synagogue the faith which he had come to 
 Damascus to destroy.* He waited neither for orders nor for theological education. The 
 letters which he took from the high priest were the last ecclesiastical authority which he 
 ever recognized. Of his preaching only a very brief rej^ort has been preserved to us ; 
 enough, however, to show that he grasped, in his very first utterances, the radical truth 
 of the new doctrine of which he sub.sequently afforded by far the most complete and satis- 
 factory interpretation. The Jews had long expected a Messiah. But their expectation had 
 been of a national deliverer, a Kossuth, a William the Silent, a George Washington. Paul 
 laid the foundation of his future life-work by proving from the Jewish prophets that the 
 Messiah was the Son of God, a teaching which carries with it the truth that the deliverance 
 which he affords is a divine and a spiritual deliverance. The excitement against him was 
 intense. His life was not safe in any place where Jewish influence could follow him. He 
 fled from Damascus to Arabia.^ Possibly he felt the need of repose, that he might recon- 
 sider his position and adjust and settle his own convictions. Possibly he desired to try for 
 himself what power the Gospel would have over the heathen. Possibly he hoped that time 
 
 » Acts ix : 19-30. » Gal. i : 15-24. » Acts ix : 18. * Acts ix : 20, 21. 
 
 ' Gal. i : 17. I agree with Alford in putting this self-exile at the 22d verse of Acts ix : Davies (Smith's Bible 
 Diet., article Paul), following Pearson, puts it between verses 19 and 20, i. e., prior to Paul's preaching ; Conybeare 
 and Howson between verses 22 and 23 ; Neander and Wordsworth, during the many days mentioned in verse 23. 
 The " straightway " of verse 20 is conclusive against the ecclesiastical inference of such writers as Wordsworth that 
 " new converts ought not to be admitted to exercise the functions of the ministerial office without some proba- 
 ilonary term of silence after their conversion." 
 
PAUL THE MISSIONARY. 27 
 
 woiiltl allay the feverish excitement which his seemin;^ apostasy had produced a<j;aiust him. 
 If that was the case he was disappointed. When he returned to Damascus it had passed 
 for the time under the control of the Arabian King Aretas. But the Arabian was as com- 
 j)lais;int to the Jew as the Roman had been, and the Jew was as full of rage against Paul as 
 «ver. Determined not to lose their intended victim, the Jews induced the governor to 
 place a guaril at the gates of the city that he might not escape. He lay concealed from his 
 persecutors for a day or two, then, borrowing a stratagem from the ancient history of the 
 Jews, was let down over the walls in a basket, and so made his way to Jerusalem.' He 
 fould not have preached long at Damascus else he would have been known, recognized and 
 gladly welcomed by the Apostles in Judea. If vague ruuKjrs of his conversion had reached 
 them there, they were not credited." The story of this conversion, which has been made 
 the subject of a scoffing skepticism ever since, was received with incredulity at the lirsl. 
 Perhaps the pride of the Apostle, as much as the fear of the disciples, prevented his meeting 
 with any of the twelve except James and Peter ; and with them only through the inter- 
 ])osition of Barnabas." Proud, Paul certainly was by nature ; and not the man to thrust 
 himself into companiousliip which hesitated to receive him or looked on him askance. 
 Anel he had lost notliiug of his passionate love for his own people. He had no notion 
 of accepting the mission to the Gentiles, probably did not understand that this was his 
 mission. Who does ever understand God's commission on the tirst giving of it?^ He pur- 
 posed to remain in Jerusalem and there preach the new Gospel to his old associates. When 
 the Master appeared to him in a vision and told him to get quickly out of Jerusalem 
 because his testimony would not be received there, he was not at all disposed to go. He 
 argued the case. " Lord," said he, " they know that 1 imprisoned and beat them that 
 believed on thee : and when the blood of thy martyr Stephen was shed I was standing by 
 and consenting unto his death, and kept the raiment of them that slew him.'"' His con- 
 clusion it is easy to supply. " I am the one above all others to preach to the Pharisees and 
 the Sanhedrim. They know me and my honesty and my enthusiasm for Judaism." Not 
 until the voice and the vision were enforced by the providence of God, and Paul's life was 
 threatened by the Jews, did he yield and flee. And still he had no conception of his life- 
 work. He went back to his old home. He spent nearly or quite three years in Tarsus and 
 its vicinity. What he did there we know not ; l)ut certainly he was not idle. Possibly to 
 his preaching there was due the conversion of his Christian kinsmen whom he subsequently 
 mentions (Rom. xvi : 24—27). A common hypothesis attributes to these three years many 
 of the perils and sufferings catalogued in 2 Cor. xi : 24-27. 
 
 Meanwhile persecuti(m was driving the disciples from Jerusalem into the provinces, 
 and the scattered Christians went everywhere i)reaching the word.* Out of these preach- 
 ings grew little by little Christian households ; we may call them churches, providing we 
 do not, in imagination, construct a church of the nineteenth century in the tirst. These 
 churches had no place of meeting ; they assembled in private houses of individual mem- 
 bers. They had no creed ; they believed in a Messiah to whose second coming in their 
 own generation they all joyfully looked forward. They had no ritual ; they read the 
 Scriptures, sang the Hebrew psalms, which they with great freedom api)lied to their own 
 circumstances, and gathered every Sunday about a table which became at once an occasion 
 of Christian fellowship, a memory of their Lord'-s death, and a prophecy of his return." 
 
 > 2 Cor xi : 32, 33 ; Acta ix : 24, 25 ; compare Joshua ii : 15. 
 
 ' Act» ix :26. Note tliat It does not say that tlie flist-iplcs liad not heard of Paul's conversion, but that they 
 did not be)'3ve in its genuineness. ' Acts ix : 27 witli Gal. i : 18. ' Acts xxii : 17-20. 
 
 »-\cLa viil 1, 4 ; xi : l'.». • Acts ii : 4«i, 47 ; iv : 24-27 ; Luke xxii : 15, It) ; Ephes. v : lit : Col. lii : 16. 
 
28 PAUL'S LIFE AND LETTERS. 
 
 Tliey liad no ordained ministry ; whoever had a word of comfort, inspiration, or counsel, 
 gave it. They had no organized form of government ; sometimes the househokl man- 
 aged all questions in purely democratic fashion ; sometimes they had a Board of Elders, 
 after the fashion of the Jewish Synagogue ; sometimes they yielded to the judgment of an 
 apostle or messenger from the older churches who appointed their officers or admonished 
 their disciples for them.* Such a household of faith had sprung up at Antioch. It was 
 not a site which one would have chosen for the birthplace or the cradle of a missionary 
 church. Yet having been chosen for this purpose by the providence of God, we can now 
 see its fitness for its appointed purpose. Of all cities of Palestine it was the most cosmo- 
 politan. Its commerce made it a meeting ground for all peoples. Greek art and Eastern 
 sensuality combined to make it the handsomest and most immoral city between the Lebanon 
 range and the Delta. Its public buildings were magnificent, its statues beautiful, its climate 
 delightful, and its population corrupt. Its half a million of inhabitants included repre- 
 sentatives of almost every tribe ; every dialect was to be heard and every costume seen 
 upon its thoroughfare and in its markets ; but every form of vice was also shamlessly prac- 
 ticed within its walls. Frivolous amusements were the industries, selfish vice the business 
 of life. Here, where all that was beautifi;l in nature and in art had created a sanctuary 
 for the perpetual festivities of vice, and where the name of Christian was first issued in 
 derision, to be converted in subsequent ages into the synonym for intelligence, A'irtue, and 
 honor, had gathered a little body of disciples almost as cosmopolitan as the city itself.* 
 The success of this little church among the pagans of this pagan city afforded the first call 
 to missionary work. Some direct intimations from the Spirit of God interpreted this call.^ 
 The church accepted the double indication of the Divine will. Saul had been summoned 
 hither by his old friend Barnabas.'' A day of fasting and prayer was appointed ; the laity 
 ^//^■^■laid hands on the ministers ; and, ordained by their own church, they went forth on the first 
 ■'^ / missionary journey to the pagan world. Twelve years hail elapsed since Saul's conversion. 
 It is not easy for us to conceive the amount of courage necessary to such an enterprise. 
 It was heroic — radical. The Old Testament abounds with prohibitions of association with 
 pagan nations. The dangers of such association were immediate and easily recognized ; 
 the advantages of association were remote and obscure. Though " hate thine enemy " is 
 not to be found among the requirements of the Mosaic law, it was the Pharisaic gloss upon 
 the Mosaic law.* Christ himself had never preached the Gospel in any pagan city, or 
 to any pagan community. In his first commission he had bidden the twelve not to go into 
 any heathen or even any Samaritan village. It is true we now find an easy way to recon- 
 cile these facts with the catholicity of Christianity ; true that we put emphasis on the 
 sermon at Nazareth, in which Christ deduced the universality of God's grace from Olil Testa- 
 ment history, and in the Sermon on the Mount in which he deduced it from the operations 
 of nature, and on the great commission in which he bade his disciples, Go into all the world 
 and preach the Gospel unto every creature. But it is very certain that the apostles did not 
 themselves read either Christ's teaching or his life during the first ten years after his death 
 as we read it now. Not one of them had gone outside of Palestine. Most of them remained 
 in or near Jerusalem, expectant of his second coming. When the message came to Peter 
 from Cornelius to ask for instruction in righteousness, it was necessary by a special vision to 
 teach Peter that he might go. When he did go, he was astonished beyond measure that the 
 
 ' Act i : 23-26 ; vi : 3, 5 ; xiii : 1-3 ; xiv : 23 ; xx : 17 ; 1 Cor. iv : 19-21 ; Titus i : 5. For fuller c. nsideration of 
 character of primitive church, see notes on Tlie Epistles to the Corinthians. 
 " See Acts xiii : 1 and note there. 
 ' Acts xiii : 2. • Acts xi : 25, 26. ' Matt. \ : 43. 
 
PAUL THE MISSIONARY, 
 
 29 
 
 GRECIAN PEASANT. 
 
 Holy Ghost sliould he given to a Roman centurion, be he ever so devout. When persecu- 
 tion drove the Christians out of Jerusalem, and they traveled as far as the heathen cities of 
 Phenice, and Cyprus, and Antioch, they preached to the Jews only.' When tidings came 
 back to the Christians at Jerusalem that at last some had ven- 
 tured to preach the Gospel unto Gentiles, the Metropolitan church, 
 startled at such disorderly proceedings, sent down Barnabas to 
 inquire into the matter.'' The Philip who ventured to l)apti7,e the 
 Ethiopian was himself a Greek ; the Stephen who was martyred for 
 intimating that God was the God not of the Jews only but also 
 of the Gentiles, was probably a proselyte from Greece. The first 
 instance of a direct preaching of the Gospel to an absolute pagan is 
 that of Paul's preaching to Paulus, the proconsul of Cyprus. No 
 wonder that Mark's heart failed him at the very boundaries of 
 paganism, and he returned from a mission which neither the 
 judgment nor the conscience of the great majority of the Chris- 
 tian disciples of that age approved. Nor must we forget that all 
 access to the pagan world seemed to be utterly cut off. There 
 was no hope of obtaining a hearing from the cultured classes ; 
 even Paul, if he ever entertained such a hope, soon abandoned it. 
 And the character of the Greek and Roman peasantry was such as 
 to be far more forbidding to the missionary of the first .century 
 than is the character of the least accessible of our foreign popula- 
 tion to the missionary of the nineteenth. 
 
 But the audacity of this missionary movement was soon eclipsed by the audacity 
 of the consequent innovation upon the practices of the fathers. Circumcision was tlie most 
 
 ancient and the most sacred of ceremonials. It 
 was older than the Jewish nation itself. It had 
 been in.stituted under Abraham, re-enacted under 
 Moses, and continued without a break to the days 
 of Paul, a period of over eighteen centuries. It 
 was thus older than baptism ; and it was com- 
 manded in terms far more express and explicit. 
 It was God's ordained method of public jirofes- 
 sion of faith and public consecration to him. It 
 separated the child of God from the child of the 
 world. It had not been set aside, nor its obliga- 
 tion weakened, by any act or any direct word 
 of Jesus Christ. He had been circumcised him- 
 self. Accused of breaking down the laws of 
 Moses, he had denied the accusation and declared 
 that not the lease jot or tittle of that law should 
 pass away till all were fulfilled. His apostles 
 had all been chosen from among circumcised 
 Israelites. But Paul found in the very begin- 
 ning of his mission this rite standing in the way of his work. The heathen would not sub- 
 mit to circumcision. It was a painful operation ; it subjected them to humiliating insults 
 
 ROMAN PLEBEIANS. 
 
30 PAUL'S LIFE AND LETTERS. 
 
 in the public baths to wliicli they were accustomed to resort. They were drawn to the 
 new life, to which tliey were called by Christ, towards the new manifestation of God 
 offered by Christ ; but Jews they would not be. Paul, therefore, abandoned all attempt to 
 make them Jews ; he discontinued circumcision. He laid no claim to any direct divine 
 authority ; he asked for no ecclesiastical authority ; he discontinued it because, instead 
 of promoting, it hindered moral and spiritual life. Experience was his teacher ; he 
 accepted her teaching as the teaching of God. 
 
 Of course such a radical departure from the traditions of eighteen centuries, enforced 
 apparently by the Word of God, and certainly by the almost universal sentiment of the 
 church, did not pass unquestioned. The return of Paul and Barnabas to Antioch was 
 followed almost immediately by an investigation which resulted in a sort of church trial. 
 A self-constituted deputation came down from Jerusalem to Antioch to call Paul to account. 
 But Paul declined to be called to account. He declined to recognize their authority. He 
 did not yield to them ; no, not for an hour. He was wholly impracticable. He would not 
 even go to Jerusalem to confer with the brethren there until instructed so to do by a special 
 revelation from God. When he did go, it was not to submit the question to them for 
 adjudication. Indeed, there was no question to submit. He had preached the Gospel ; it 
 had been accompanied by miracles ; men had been converted in very considerable numbers ; 
 they had abandoned idols and idol-worship and turned to the one true God ; and, for Paul,, 
 that was enough. When he went he took an uncircumcised Greek with him. He stopped 
 at the churches on his way to tell them of his work. When he reached Jerusalem he 
 opened no question. He simply repeated to the brethren there assembled the same story 
 of his mission labors and the results. The Pharisaic Christians vehemently assailed the 
 regularity of his proceedings. It does not appear that he made any reply. 
 
 At length what is called the Council was convened. It was really a meeting of the 
 church or churches in Jerusalem. It does not appear that a single delegate from any other 
 church was present, except those that had come from Antioch. The object was not to 
 decide authoritatively a question submitted to the assembled wisdom of the churches ; it 
 was to bring about, if possible, a good understanding between the two churches concerned. 
 The apostles and the elders of the church or churches in the city constituted a sort of com- 
 mittee. They discussed the matter long and earnestly before they arrived at a conclusion. 
 It was unanimous. To make it so they united on a compromise. If I read the narrative 
 aright, this conclusion was reached first in committee and then reported to the church in 
 mass-meeting. Peter paved the way for the reception of the report by reminding the 
 church how God had bestowed his Spirit upon the uncircumcised twelve or fifteen years- 
 ago. Paul and Barnabas followed with an account of the miracles which had accompanied 
 their labors, and attested the divine approval. Then James announced the report officially. 
 It was that the Gospel should be preached to the Gentiles as to the Jews ; that circumcision 
 should not be required ; but that, as the laws of Moses were read every Sabbath in the 
 Synagogues, to prevent misapprehension and quarrels the Gentiles should abstain from 
 blood, and things strangled, and meat that had been offered to idols. The assembly ratified 
 the report ; it was reduced to writing ; it was sent back to the church at Antioch, and the 
 danger of a schism was passed.' 
 
 » The language of chap, xvi : 4. may be thought inconsistent with the view here given of this so-called 
 Council. " And as they (Paul and Silas) went through the cities, they delivered them the decrees for to keep that 
 were ordained of the apostles and elders which were at Jerusalem." But the word here rendered decrees is primarily 
 opinions, then resolutions publicly enacted, only secondarily decrees emanating from some acknowledged authority. 
 The language does not necessarily convey the idea of any ecclesiastical authority, or indeed, of any authority other 
 
I'AUL THE MISSlONAliY. 31 
 
 From this time forth the lilc of Paul was tliat of a missionary to pagan hinds. He 
 traveled through Asia Minor, visiting its chief cities. He crossed the Egean Sea, going as 
 far west as Athens and Corinth. Wherever he went, he ignored the distinction between 
 Jew and Gentile, and disregarded the hallowed prescriptions and ritual of the Jewish law. 
 Indeed, to ritual and regulation of every kind he paid but small deference. He rarely rir- 
 cumcised ] but he baptized no oftener.' He disregarded the regulations of the Old Testa- 
 ment ; but he paid no greater resj>ect to those of the Christian church at Jerusalem. Within 
 .^iTorTnght years after the .so-called Council at Jerusalem had decreed that heathen converts 
 keep themselves from things strangled and from blood, Paul was teaching them to eat what- 
 ever was offered in the markets, asking no questions for conscience' sake.'^ Never was man 
 jnore iiidifferent to religious conventionalism. When the Synagogue was opened to him he 
 preached in the Synagogue ; when it was closed to him, he preached in the market-place or 
 open square, which was a characteristic feature of every Greek and Roman city. When he 
 could not get a large audience, he talked to the people in groups of twos and threes. A few 
 poor Jewish women gathered outside the walls of a city that had no Synagogue was not a con- 
 gregation he despised. Sometimes he preached in his own house or that of his h'ost. Once 
 he used an abandoned school-house and turned that into a chapel.' He accepted the hospi- 
 tality of friends when it was offered him ; when it was not, he earned a living liy the trade 
 of tent-making, which he had acquired in his youth. Having neither wife nor child, his 
 wants were few, and he was equally independent of frieiids and of foes.'' At length he was 
 mobbed in Jerusalem by Jews who thought he had brought Greeks up to pollute by their 
 presence the Temple. He was brought before the Roman governor as a disturber of the 
 peace ; having no hope of a fair trial he appealed, as every Roman citizen had a right to 
 do, from the Provincial government to the Emperor. He was sent to Rome under a guard, 
 and there history leaves him. Tradition reports his acquittal, further missionary journeys 
 — certainly one, perhaps several — a second arrest, and a final martyrdom under Nero in 
 about the 60th year of his age. 
 
 Of his personal appearance we know very little. Tradition has painted his picture • 
 but the traditions of the fourth and subsequent centuries are of very little value. They 
 represent him as round-shouldered and under height, with aquiline nose, gray eyes, meeting 
 eyebrows, pale-reddish complexion, and an ample beard. Some of these features are con- 
 firmed, however, by his references to contemptiious descriptions of him by his adversaries a-s- 
 in bodily presence weak and in speech contemptible.* Nevertheless, he must have been an 
 orator of no mean power. When the superstitious pagans of Lycaonia thought that he and 
 Barnabas were gods come down to earth in the likeness of men, they regarded Paul as Mer- 
 cury — the god of elofjuence.* When he had been rescued from the mob at Jerusalem, by 
 the Roman soldiers, and with disheveled garments and bound in chains, stood on the tower 
 stairs and beckoned with his hand, there was something in his presence, round-shouldered 
 and short of height though he may have been, which silenced the multitude.'' He evi- 
 dently had confidence in his own powers. When the cultured but scornfully skeptical 
 
 than such as tlie younger churches wo\ild naturally impute to the Mother Church at Jerusalem, confirmed by the 
 unanimous assent of the immediate life-companions of the Lord. How little permanent control they exercised over 
 the apostolic churches in general, or the Apostle Paul in particular, is indicated by the fact that in less than seven 
 years Paul declared in the most emphatic inanner that there was nothing unclean in meats offered to idols, and main- 
 tained the right of disciples to buy and eat whatever was sold in Uie open market. 
 
 ' Acts xvi : 3 ; 1 Cor. i : 16. Observe that in Acts xix : 5, it is not stated that Paul baptized. 
 
 ' 1 Cor. viii : 4 ; x : 25-27. * Acts xiii : 44-47 ; xvi : 13 ; xvii : 17 ; xviii : 7 ; xix : 9 ; xx : 7, 8 ; xxviii : 30. 
 
 ♦ Acts xviii : 3 ; XX : 34 ; 1 Cor. iv : 11, 12 : vii : 8 ; 2 Cor. xi : 8, 9 ; Thess. ii : 9 ; 2 Thess. iii : 8. 
 
 • 1 Cor. X : 10. ° Acts xiv : 12. ' Acta xxi : 40. 
 
33 PAUL'S LIFE AND LETTERS. 
 
 Athenians bore him to Mars Hill to address them there ou the new religion, he had no 
 hesitations. When the infuriated mob of ten thousand rushed into the theatre at Ephesus, 
 with his companions he would have hastened to their rescue, strong in his confidence of 
 power to still the tumult, if he had not been dissuaded from his purpose. The conscience- 
 less and corrupt Felix trembled when he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and 
 judgment to come — no other case known in which Felix trembled before God, man, or 
 devil.* Evidently, whatever his enemies might say, and however he might contempt- 
 uously disregard the rules of the rhetoricians,^ who imagined then, as they do now, that 
 eloquence could be put up by rule like an apothecary's prescription, his bodily presence 
 was not weak nor his speech contemptible. History affords few illustrations of speech more 
 effectual than his on two or three critical occasions of his life. Alas ! of his speeches we 
 have but few and fragmentary reports, eight in all ; but these reports are mere abstracts or 
 memorabilia. Paul was not a brief speaker. Men of such fiery earnestness rarely speak 
 by the clock. On one occasion we are told that he preached till midnight.^ But the 
 longest report of any speech which has come down to us can be read deliberately in ten 
 minutes. 
 
 Wherever he went, organizations of disciples of the new faith sprang up. These organi- 
 zations were of the simplest character. They were in reality as well as in name " house- 
 holds of faith."* The organization of these primitive churches was very simple. Generally, 
 the Jewish Synagogue afforded the model which was followed. A board of elders admin- 
 istered the affairs of the little community ; sometimes they were elected by the congregation ; 
 sometimes they were selected by the teacher whose preaching had given rise to the organi- 
 sation of the church ; in either case they were regarded as chosen by the Holy Gh(j.st. 
 The church possessed neither a ritual nor a creed. It is probable that the Lord's Prayer 
 was used in their services ; some Christian doxologies, modified from the ancient psalms, 
 were also in vogue. The prayers were generally extemporaneous ; the worship was sub- 
 ordinate to instruction. The age was one of universal poetry, and Christian hymns were 
 often written by individual members for the local church, but these were quite as often 
 expressions of Christian truth as of prayer or praise. Baptism was universally employed 
 as a symbol in the admission of new members. The baptismal formula seems to have been 
 in the name of Jesus. The formula in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the 
 Holy Ghost, is not recorded as in actual use in the first century. The breaking of bread 
 in commemoration of Christ's death, and perhaps in prophetic anticipation of his sacred 
 coming, was an accompaniment of the religious services. It was sometimes followed 
 or preceded by a church supper, which was originally intended as a means of social inter- 
 change, and of providing the poor out of the resources of their more prosperous brethren. 
 But aristocracy crept into the church ; the rich provided for themselves sumptuously, 
 and left the poor to common fare ; agapse, or love-feasts, partook of the social degradation 
 of a Greek symposium, and sometimes broke up in drunkenness and disorder. They 
 were, therefore, early discontinued. The infant churches had no settled places of 
 worship. The houses of the Greeks were generally provided with an upper chamber for 
 company and for feasts ; this furnished the most comfortable place for the simple services 
 of the early Christians. There was but one Christian church in a city ; but the disciples 
 met from house to house, their services being analogous to our neighborhood prayer- 
 meetings. Sometimes a pastor was appointed who fulfilled the functions of a modern 
 pastor, and who received some compensation for his services. More ordinarily the church 
 
 ' Acts xvii : 19, etc.; xix : 30, 31 ; xxiv : 25. "1 Cor. ii : 1, 4. * Acts xx : 7 
 
 ♦ See p. 27. 
 
PAUL THE MISSIONARY. 
 
 33 
 
 service was a prayer-meeting, where both men and wonumparticipated. In Corinth, where 
 tlie customs of society forbade respectable women from taking any part in the publii- 
 services, and where to speak in a promiscuous assemblage was regarded as a sign of lewd- 
 ness, Paul counseled the women to keep silenc^ The sacred l)ooks of thcsu cluirches were 
 those of the Old Testament. Their knowledge of the life of Christ was largely derived 
 from tradition. When, however, a written account of the life and sayings of our Lord came 
 into the possession of any church, it was regarded as a peculiar treasure ; copies were made 
 of it and sent to the neighboring churches. In the same way, a letter from either of the 
 apostles was regarded by a congregation with a reverence second only to that paid to the 
 Old Testament itself; these also were copied and exchanged among the churches. It 
 
 ROMAN LIBRARY. 
 
 is .scarcely needful to remind the reader that the only books of these days were manuscripts, 
 tlie only libraries were collections of rolls of parchment. Thus, gradually, the New Testa- 
 ment collections of .sacred writings grew ; it did not come into its present form until the 
 second or third century. The first catalogue of New Testament books, known as the Canon 
 of Muratori, is believed to have been written during the second century. The effect of the 
 general curiosity and suspicion with which the early Christians found themselves regarded 
 by both Jew and Gentile, was to keep them united ; nevertheles.s, differences of opinion 
 and of sentiment grew into divisions. The most serious were those between the Jewi.sh and 
 the Gentile converts ; but then, as now, different teachers impressed their personality on 
 their disciples, and there were followers of Paul, of Apollos, of Peter, and others, who, 
 a.ssuming to be less sectarian, claimed to be pre-eminently the followers of Christ. The 
 churches were generally composed from the lower classes in society. We can hardly con - 
 ceive the degree of social an d political oppr ession which those classes suffered. To them 
 the a.ssurance of the love of God and of the second coming of a King, whose coronation and 
 glory they should share, was full of inspiration and attraction. In the first century, 
 
34 PAUL'S LIFE AND LETTERS. 
 
 however, as in the nineteenth, the moral life of the convert was not always affected by this 
 religious hope, and the admonitions of the Apostles against fornication, uncleanliness, 
 inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, are a significant and a conclu- 
 sive indication that the nujral life of the primitive churches was far below that of the 
 church of to-day. 
 
 These churches Paul always carried in his heart. Each new church became a new 
 burden. Love generates love ; their affection for him, though certainly less profound, less 
 spiritual, and less enduring, was scarcely less intense. The Galatians would have torn their 
 eyes out for him. The Philippians, poor as they were, made up a box — the first missionary 
 box— and sent it to him.' A^Hien opportunity offered, he sent to these churches a letter of 
 counsel, caution, admonition, or inspiration. Some of these letters have been preserved ; 
 presumptively only a few ; we know that some have been lost.'' Of these letters, only the 
 one written to the church at Rome, is in the nature of a general treatise on the Christian 
 religion ; it is addressed to Ijoth pagan s and je^vs ; his other letters are in no sense 
 treatises." Their aim is not to unfold a general system of theology or philosophy, but to 
 correct a particular abuse, or guard against a particular danger, or inspire to a particular 
 virtue or grace ; and they are addressed not to the human race, but to special and dear 
 friends. They are the utterances of a father to loved children, of different temperaments 
 and in different exigencies. The Ejsistles to the Corinthians, mainly devoted to detailed 
 instrvictions to and moral judgments upon a particular church, afford the best contempo- 
 raneous picture of the moral status of tlie apostolic churches ; the Epistle to the Galatians, 
 written to a church that was relapsing into formalism, gives Paul's s^aecific for that spiritual 
 disease ; the Epistle to the Ephesians, written to tlie most superstitious city of Asia Minor, 
 contains his antidote for Spiritism, ancient and uK^dern, — namely, faith in a God immanent in 
 human experience : for the soul that is filled with all the fullness of God has no room for 
 table-tipping spirits and haunting demons ; the Epistle to the Colossians is the same letter 
 in substance, different only in form ; the Epistle to the Philippians is the great missionary's 
 letter of thanks for the first missionary box ; the letters to the Thessalonians contain his 
 doctrine of the last days ; and those to Timothy and Titus liis counsels respecting church 
 administration and teaching. The whole number of these letters is but^^t welye . The 
 longest of them can easily be read through at a sitting. Altogether they comprise but fifty 
 octavo pages in Bagster's Bible. The orations of Cicero, extant and undisputed, are fifty- 
 nine in number, and constitute a respectable library of eloquence. The writings of Plato in 
 Jowett's English translation fill four octavo volumes of nearly 600 pages each. The entire 
 literary remains of Paul would fill less than a pamphlet of 100 pages of the size of this book 
 and of type the size used on this page. 
 
 From these literary remains the influence which Paul has exerted upon the world has 
 proceeded ; by these he is to be judged ; from these, the truth he had to give to the world, 
 is to be drawn. But before entering on a detailed study of these writings, I ask the reader 
 to join me in deducing from them some knowledge of the writer. 
 
 » Gal. iv : 15 ; Phil, iv : 10, 16-18 ; 2 Cor. xi : 28. » Col. iv : 16. 
 
 ' The Epistle to the Hebrews, addressed exclusively to the Jews, is also general iii its character ; but modem 
 scholars, with few exceptions, agree that it was not Paul's composition. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 PAUL THE WRITER. 
 
 TEACHERS may be divided into two classes : lovers of truth and lovers of men — 
 philosophers and philanthropists.' Every lover of truth will, at least theoretically, 
 concede that the value of truth is in its service to men ; every lover of men will concede 
 that truth is the only instrument for the permanent amelioration of their condition. Never- 
 theless the distinction is real ; the classification actual and practical. The philosopher is 
 one whose interest is in truth for its own sake ; he is fascinated by its inherent beauty ; 
 it is to him an art ; the relation of truths to each other, the fitting of thena together, 
 the separation of truth into its constituent parts and the re-composition again, the proc- 
 esses of analysis and synthesis, fascinate him, as the putting together of a dissected map 
 fascinates a child. The .scientific philosopher is interested in scientific investigation, not in 
 the practical application of natural laws to immediately useful inventions ; the sociological 
 philosopher studies the laws which regulate peace and war, marriage and death, health and 
 disease, rather than practical legislation to put an end to war, encourage happy marriages, 
 reduce divorces, and promote sanitary conditions ; the metaphysical philosopher devotes 
 himself to constructing a theory of the divine government of the universe or the nature 
 of man, not to the practical work of bringing men to know and love God or to govern 
 wisely and use effectively their whole nature. The philanthropist, on the other hand, is 
 little interested in truth for its own sake ; he regards it simply as an instrument for better- 
 ing the condition or the characters of his fellow-men. The scientific philanthropist cares 
 little about the inquiry into the nature of electricity, he is busy making a telephone or an 
 electric light ; the sociological philanthropist is indifferent respecting social theories, except 
 as they help him to frame legislation, or to employ influences which will reduce disease, 
 ])auperi.sm, drunkenness, crime, and ignorance ; the religious philanthropist concerns him- 
 self little about systematic theology, he has no theory of the moral government of the 
 universe, he is wholly devoted to inducing men to repent of sin, accept pardon and con.se- 
 crate themselves to a new life of love to God and man. Any theology which will bring 
 about tluit result is good enough for him. Neither of these classes could do without the 
 other. The philosopher forges the weapons, the philanthropi-st uses them. Calvin was a 
 lihilosopher, Luther a philanthropist ; Buckle was a philosopher, Hcjward a ])hilanthropist ; 
 Bacon was a philosopher, Morse and Edison were philanthropists. 
 
 Now Paul has been studied as a philosopher ; he should be studied as a philantlirojiist. 
 He was not the founder nor the expounder of a new system of philosophy. He was not a 
 meditator upon systems. He was not interested in the formation of a new school of philoso- 
 phy, profounder and more comprehensive than any which preceded. His writings have 
 nothing of the spirit of Plato or of Aristotle. He had neither the time, the aptitude, 
 nor the inclination for philo.sopliical study or philosophical teaching. This is clear from 
 the story of his life, if the reader has followed that story carefully thus far. That life was 
 not spent in a study among books, but among men. The whole period of his authorship 
 
 ' I use Imtli terms in their nrijiiiial and etyniolngipal sigiiilication. 
 
36 PAUL'S LIFE AND LETTERS. 
 
 covered about twelve years. During that time lie traveled all over Asia Minor ; certainly 
 as far west as Rome, perhaps as far west as Spain. He never spent more than three years in 
 any one city ; and those years were filled to the full with preaching and teaching, and some- 
 times tent-making was added for support. He has compressed his biography into a few lines : 
 
 Of the Jews five times received I forty strii)es, save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once 
 was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day have I been in the deep ; in journey- 
 ings often, in perils of rivers, in perils of robbers, in perils from my countrymen, in perils from the 
 (Jentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false 
 brethren, in labor and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold 
 and nakedness. Besides these things that are without, there is that which presseth upon ine 
 daily, anxiety for all the churches. ' 
 
 This is not the biography of a student ; it is not the life of a man whose interest is in 
 new systems of thought, but of one whose whole soul is full of an unquenchable ardor 
 ^ / of enthusiasm for men. He_wasJhejnissionaTy of^Jriithj^j^ the constructor of a sjsteni^ 
 He labored to build up men not philosophy. His letters, with the possible exception of 
 tlie Epistle to the Romans, all grew out of some special exigency, and were addressed to 
 the special want of special friends. There is not the slightest indication anywhere that 
 he ever dreamed that his writings would reach any wider circle of readers than that of the 
 churches to which they were originally addressed, or that they would ever be accepted as 
 the authoritative foundation of a future philosophy of God and his government. He was a^ 
 revivalist, not a theologian ; or a theologian only as every true revivalist must be a thee >- 
 logian. His theology is not set forth by himself as by Calvin in his Institutes ; it must be 
 deduced from his literary remains, as the theology of Moody from his sermons. His 
 writings have been the subject of more study by philosophers anxious to get out of them 
 a comprehensive theory of life, than those of any other writer. These students have dis- 
 covered in the letters what Paul never put into them, because they have unconsciously put 
 into the letters what they wanted to find there. They have assumed that Paul was, like 
 themselves, a philosopher, a lover of wisdom, a constructor of theology. Each school has 
 found in Paul the founder of its own philosophy ; whereas he was in fact the founder of 
 none. The best preparation for the interpretation of Paul's writings would be a foreign 
 missionary field. Paul's true character is indicated by his title : Paul the Apostle, i. e., the 
 messenger. He was the herald of a Person, not the formulator of a philosophy.* 
 
 As for the life of a philosophic student he had little time or opportunity, so for such a 
 life he had little aptitude, either by nature or by education. The formulating of philoso- 
 phy requires leisure, quiet, meditation. Paul's life was one of incessant and intense activity. 
 It requires a logical, reflecting mind, a cool and cautious temperament, a calm and serene 
 temper. Paul was an enthusiast, whose passionate earnestness made him a cruel fanatic in 
 the early years of his manhood, and was saved from fanaticism in his later years only by his 
 philanthropy and his piety. If the object of Paul's life has been misapprehended, so 
 also the character of his mind has been misinterpreted. He was not a logician, he was 
 an idealist.' 
 
 > 2 Cor. xi : 24-28. 
 
 " He himself vigorously repudiated the character which has been so generally given to him, of a philosophic 
 < f teacher, the creator of a new school of theosophic thought. 1 Cor. i : 17-25 ; ii : 1-7. 
 
 ' This is not the character commonly given to him. Dr. Peabody (Smith's Bible Dictionary, article Paul, 
 
 page 2400) probably expresses the average judgment of the scholars respecting Paul's character: "Among the 
 
 Apostle's characteristics as a writer we would name as most prominent, the singular union, throughout the greater 
 
 K part of his Epistles, of strong reasoning and vivid emotion. He is severely logical, and at the same time full 
 
 y- of Intense feeling." 
 
^ PAUL THE WRITER. 37 
 
 Some minds arrive at truth by slow ami cautious processes of deduction. Tliey con- 
 clude everything from premises, though not always from premises verified by the senses. 
 They argue out a God from nature. He is a logical hypothesis; to be accepted unless"^ 
 sonie other philosophy can afford some other hypothesis which will serve to explain nature ^^ 
 as well, or better. There is a creation ; therefore there must be a Creator. Force and 
 matter are imlestnictiblc ; the soul must be either force or matter ; therefore it mu.st be 
 immortal. God and immortality are " must-bes."' This is the much vaunted " scientitic 
 method." This is logical. 
 
 There are other minds which arrive at the truth by no such process ; they see it, and 
 that to them is the end of it. They perceive truth as the artist perceives beauty ; if you 
 di) not perceive it, he is .sorry for your lack of art sense, but he cannot compensate for it by 
 a syllogism. These men are the seers and prophets of the world's history. They take in 
 truth at a glance, by a process which they can never explain, and which devotees of the 
 scientific method can never understand. They may use the scientific method to expound 
 the truth to the logician, as you may guide a blind man's hand over the face of a statue 
 which he cannot see ; but they themselves have eyes and see. God is not a " must-be " ; 
 immortality is not a scientific hypothesis. They know God by personal perception ; they 
 «h) not arrive at a guess about hini. He is not an algebraic x to be interpreted by algebraic 
 ])rocesses. They realize immortality in their own consciousness ; they do not conclude that 
 they will be immortal, they know that they are immortal. 
 
 To this latter class Paul belonged. He was essentially an idealist. Other men have 
 surpassed him in the logical faculty ; but, excepting John, none have equaled him in the 
 clearness of perception of truth — immediate, direct, instant perception. Spiritual truth was 
 never to him an hypothesis, it w^as fact ^ he did not conclude, he saw. This spiritual per- I 
 caption is what_he_means by faith ; to believe is never with Paul to conclude ; it is never 
 an intellectual act ; it is to know, to .see, to perceive. The just live _by their_spiritual^_per-i A^ 
 ception ; it is_ t]i£ir _guide. Relief from the burden of remorse is given, through spirituajl 
 jierception of a merciful and pardoning SavlourT WiW tlie man whose character is still raw) 
 ;fiii rgreeir 1:liis Bpirltual perception of righteousness is couiited unto him for attainment ; iti 
 is enough if ne sees and pur sues righteousness. The righteousness which is rooted anc» 
 grounded m this spiritual perception of truth and goodness and life, and grows out of itl 
 is abiding ; that which is not has no life in it, however guarded by rules and prescriptions a 
 it is like a tree without roots, no box can make it stand. This spiritual perception, working 
 in and thnjugh love, constitutes the new creature in Christ Jesus. This spiritual percep-, 
 ti<m is the root of charity ; hope is its blossom ; love is its fruit ; all other things shalP 
 jKissaway ; these are eternal.' This spiritual perception gives Paul absolute certainty : he 
 knows, he does not surmise or conclude.'^ He puts this spiritual knowledge in sharp con- 
 trast with all deductions of the "scientific method." He knows that sin dwells in him; 
 that all things work together for good to those that have in them the consciousness of 
 (Jod's love ; that an idol is nothing ; that he has an house not made with hands, eternal in 
 the heavens. He knows Christ. He knows whom he has trusted, and that he will be able 
 fo keep the trust till the last great day. He appeals to this spiritual certainty in others. 
 Know ye not, he cries, that ye are the Temple of God ? Have you no experience of his 
 indwelling that suffices to keep you from shame ? He repudiates the knowledge that is 
 
 ' 2 Cor. iv : 18 ; Rom. i : 17 ; iii : 25 ; iv : 5 ; ix : .30 ; Gal. v : ; with vi : 15 ; 1 Cor. xiii : 13. 
 
 ' Where in the original olSa ((Atla) is used, the Apostle very generally refers to this spiritual vital conscious- .'' 
 ness ; other Greek verbs are used for otlier fonns of knowledge. '-' 
 
38 PAUL'S LIFE AND LETTERS. 
 
 mated to an impure life : they profess that they know God, but in works they deny him. 
 From beginning to end, in sermon and letter, the language is that of a seer who is laboring 
 to arouse in deadened natures the spiritual consciousness which is all alive in him, and 
 so bring to blinded eyes the sight that gladdens his eyes and to dead souls the life which 
 fills his soul. 
 
 Paul lived in a dead age. Spiritual con.sciousness had, as it were, lapsed. The age 
 was barren of all that is significant of insight, both in religion and in literature. It had 
 been over four hundred years since the last of the Hebrew prophets had seen the truth and 
 borne testimony to it. Their place had been taken by scribes and rabbis who, for the reve- 
 lation of truth through the .spiritual consciousness, substituted the scientific method ; who 
 ^poke logically and therefore not with authority ; ^ who, with infinite pains and no end of nice 
 distinctions, argued about truth and righteousness, and proved what was true and good and 
 what was false and base, but never appealed to the spiritual sense in others because they 
 had little or none left in themselves. Here and there was a single man of spiritual sense 
 like Simeon, in the Temple ; but the leaders of thought were dialecticians like Gamaliel. In 
 the heathen world it was no better. There is not a single Greek name eminent in either 
 poetry or speculative philosophy for a century prior to Paul. Neither Sophocles nor Socrates, 
 both nearly five centuries before, had left a successor. Roman literature was richer ; but 
 Roman religion was, if possible, worse. Idealism was dead ; the world, pagan and Jewish, 
 had passed or was fast passing into the blindness which gropes for the truth though the sun 
 is shining. The only recognized pleasure was sensual self-indulgence ; the only recognized 
 power was brute force. The age was one of univer.sal decline. Religion had degenerated 
 into a ritual ; the gods had faded into myths ; the oracles were silent ; the temple services 
 were sanctioned by the educated only because superstition was thought a necessary pro- 
 tection from the violence of the ignorant. " Great Pan is dead " was the universal lament 
 of the age.* 
 
 It was to this age Paul spoke. He had been thoroughly trained in the scholastic 
 methods of the Jewish rabbis. He was equally familiar with the Jewish Scriptures and the 
 rabbinical commentaries thereon. He was habituated to their forms of thought. Born 
 and brought up in a pagan city, and of free parents, he had some acquaintance too with 
 pagan literature and with the pagan " scientific method." He made good use of this knowl- 
 edge. His letters are not those of a cool and cautious reasoner, who, Ijy argumentative 
 processes, has arrived at certain philosophical conclusions and retraces his steps that he 
 may guide pupils as patient as himself, by the same road to the same result. They are the 
 impassioned utterances of a man who sees the truth, knows it, instantly and immediately 
 perceives it, by his own inner spiritual sight, and is laboring to give at least some glimpse 
 of it to a leaden-headed, dull-eyed, stupefied age, that can never be made to believe that he has 
 any thing worth the seeing, except by one who is proficient in their own methods and forms 
 of thought. He is all things to all men. When he is heralding the Person to the Jews, he 
 argues from their Scripture ; when he is speaking to the pagans, he says no word about the 
 Jewish wTi tings, but quotes from their own pagan philosophers.' Sometimes he uses argu- 
 ments the full force of which we recognize and acknowledge to-day ; sometimes arguments 
 that would carry no weight from any other teacher than Paiil ; sometimes arguments 
 which, in our ignorance of rabbinical legends, Ave can hardly even comprehend. "\Mien he 
 
 • Matt. 7 : 29. 
 
 ' See Froude's "Caesar," Chap. I.; Ulhorn's " Conflict of Christianity with Paganism," Chap. I.; Presserse's 
 " Keligions before Christ," p. 153, etc. 
 ^ Acts xvii : 28. 
 
PAUL THE WRITER. 39 
 
 demonstrated to the Jewish Galatians that the promises to Abraham are fulfilled in Christ, 
 because tlu' Old Testament says not To seeds as of many but To thy seed as of one, the aver- 
 age nineteenth century mind is more ready to accept the conclusion than the argument. 
 When he argues to the Corinthians that women ought to go veiled in public assemblies 
 " because of the angels," the nineteenth century reader accepts neither the conclusion nor 
 the argument. 
 
 Paul is discursive ; fragmentary ; impassioned ; impulsive. His method is that of one 
 who is full of a grand and clearly perceived truth, and who with difficulty endures the j 
 opposition or the phlegmatic inditference of his auditors or hearers. He knows his own I 
 immortality ; he labors to set forth that truth to the acceptation of the Corinthians, inter- 
 rupts himself with an imaginary objection, With what body do the dead come '] can i 
 hardly contain himself to listen to the objection, and sweeps it away with the emphatic 
 response, " You foolish fellow ; God shall give it a body as it pleaseth him." It is not 
 strange that readers who have been taught to regard Paul as severely logical, are perplexed 
 to follow the chain of his logic. They can not follow it because it is not there. There are 
 links, sometimes two or three joined together, but these do not make a chain. 
 
 Coupled with his idealism was an intense and passionate earnestness. Hi; did not 
 believe in cool reason ; he lived at red heat and urged his readers to do the same. This 
 intense and passionate earnestness showed itself in his exceeding madness against the 
 Christians ; in his enthusiastic love for his countrymen ; in his travail of soul for every 
 one who had once felt and answered to the inspiration of this influence ; but, above all, in 
 the unquenchable ardor of his love for Christ. Words could not utter what he felt toward 
 the unseen Christ, who filled his soul with his own perpetual Presence. He never lost or 
 weakened in his pride of character ; but he delighted to call himself the slave ' of Jesus 
 Christ. Breadth and depth are rarely consi-stent ; the Nile when it overflows its Imnks 
 and spreads over the whole valley, moves with a sluggish current. Paul's intensity of 
 nature nuide him in some sense a narrow man. His journeys took him through the most 
 celebrated scenery of the ancient world ; Troy, the Pierus, the Parnassus, the Egean Sea, 
 the Hellespont, the Pindus, the pass of Thermopylae, the Corinthian Isthmus, were among 
 the objects which lay almost or exactly in his path ; but he never mentions a single object 
 of natural scenery nor an historical locality, even in incidental allusion. Of the Grecian 
 and Roman works of art he was equally oblivious — the magnificent temple to Diana at 
 Ephesus, one of the seven wonders of the world, the ex(]^uisite statuary in Athens, the great 
 Appian Way to Rome, who.se ruins sur\iving the ravages of war and time, remain to indi- 
 cate the probable course of his journey from Rhegium to Rome, the marvelous architectural 
 monuments of the latter city are unmentioned in his writings. To all schools of philosophy 
 and all pha.'ses of literature he was e([ually indifferent. We can gather no more about the 
 Stoics and the Epicureans from the 'WTitings of Paul than we could of Spencer and Darwin 
 from the sermons of Dwight L. Moody. He had with him and in him a Christ, his Saviour ; 
 his joy and strength ; the life of his life. He cared for nothing but to reveal that Presence 
 to men who, for want of it, were steadily sinking into a death from which there could be no 
 awakening. Nothing else was worth to him a thought. Once in his journeys he came 
 within a few miles of the Troy to which Homer has given world-wide fame. He did not 
 even turn tiside to .see it. 
 
 This passionate eagerness, joined to his idealism, makes him at once an intense and 
 a dramatic writer. His mind worked like lightning ; not only in the rapidity but also 
 
 ' Rom. i : 1 ; Gal. i : 10 ; Titus i : 1. 
 
40 
 
 PAUL'S LIFE AND LETTERS. 
 
 in the iinexpectedness of its stroke. One can never guess from the beginning of his sentence 
 what the end will be. He cares nothing for the logic of his argument ; nothing for the 
 arrangement of his words ; he cares only to impress his truth on his reader's mind ; and 
 that truth is always a vital perception, a part of himself ; always an indigenous growth, 
 never an imported manufacture. 
 
 His eyes seem to have broken down ; perhaps — this is a reasonable surmise — they 
 never recovered from the temporary blindness produced by the dazzling light which shone 
 on him upon the road to Damascus." He certainly was accustomed to depend upon an 
 amanuensis in writing. His letters are the extemporaneous and spoken utterances of a soul 
 
 filled with a divine 
 
 enthusiasm. Im- 
 agine the scene : a 
 short, stooping, 
 pale-complexioned 
 Jew, his face alter- 
 nately flushing and 
 paling with excite- 
 ment as he pro- 
 ceeds, stands before 
 his secretary, or 
 paces the room as 
 he dictates. He 
 sees before him the 
 friends to whom he 
 is aljout to speak. 
 That he has never 
 seen them before 
 affects him not the 
 least; they are 
 eqiially present 
 with him. He be- 
 gins to talk with 
 them ; the aman- 
 uensis keeps pace as well as he can with the increasing torrent ; the speaker thinks as he 
 speaks, and corrects, modifies, inserts his parentheses and, as it were, his interlineations as 
 he dictates. The thought grows in expressing ; the inadequacy of language oppresses him ; 
 he turns the truth back and forth in endeavor to shed its full light; an imaginary objector 
 .starts before him ; he phrases for himself the objection, replies to it in one short, .sharp 
 sentence, or sweeps him and his puerile objection away with an exclamation of impatience, 
 or even leaves it contemptuously to bear its own refutation by the bare statement of it.* 
 Or the truth of his experience passes beyond all bounds of exposition, and he breaks out 
 into a rhapsody of praise, " Oh, the depths of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge 
 of God," or into a magnificent Psalm which scarcely lacks even the rhythm and meter to be 
 a song fit for service in the kingdom of God.^ Wliatever philosophy may be found in 
 the beginning of his letter, practical godliness and goodness is sure to be its outcome. The 
 
 TuMUS ALONG THE APPIAN VVAl. 
 
 ' Compare Acts ix : 8, 9, with Gal. iv : 15. ' Rom. iii 
 » Like Romans, Chap, viii ; or 1 Cor. Chap. xiii. 
 
 5-8 ; vi : 1, 2 ; vii : 7 ; 1 Cor. xv : 36 ; Gal. i : 9, 10 ; iii :3. 
 
» PAUL THE WRITER. 41 
 
 letter finislied, he has neither time nor patience to revise ; to do so would be to rewrite. 
 He adds a Sivlutation ; sometimes, personal remembrances of individuals ; and appending 
 liis autographic signature,' closes and sends it to its destination. 
 
 Such letters, written by a man so endowed, are not to be interpreted as theological j 
 treatises, or literary or religious essays. They are neither books, sermons, nor tracts ; theyi 
 are exactly what their name indicates : Letters ; and as letters they are to be read unth 
 studied. 
 
 > 2 Thess. iii : 17. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE PAGAN WORLD. 
 
 BEFORE passing from this rapid survey of Paul's life and character to a study of his 
 WTitings, we must stop for a glance at the condition of the world at the time of his 
 writing, that is, at the society to which he addressed himself. And as all his extant letters 
 — unless possibly the Epistle to the Hebrews be an exception— were addressed, if not to 
 
 
 
 KOME. (View from Citadel. Coliseum in distance. 
 
 pagan communities, at least to churches in pagan communities, it will be sufficient for our 
 present purpose to look simply at the moral condition of the pagan world. It is not difficult 
 to form a tolerably clear conception of its moral character, both because Paul in the first 
 chapter of his Epistle to the Romans has given a graphic and terrible description of Roman 
 society, and because contemporaneous pagan literature abundantly confirms and illustrates 
 his terrible indictment. Space does not allow, nor does my purpose require, any elaborate 
 picture. Roman society in the first century of the Christian era has been often described, 
 
THE PAGAN WORLD. 43 
 
 and to these ilescriptions the reader is referred whose curiosity prompts and whose time 
 permits a further study.' Even then he will not, can not know the worst. For the worst 
 aspects (jf the best society of Pagan Rome under Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero 
 can not be described, can scarcely be hinted at, in a modern book for modern readers. They 
 are aptly characterizetl by the apostle as works of darkness which it is a shame even to 
 speak of. It must suflice here to indicate in broad lines the characteristic features of this 
 moral degradation. 
 
 There are six indications of the moral life of a community, either of which is signifi- 
 cant ; when they all agree in their testimony they atford a nearly infallible test of its true 
 character. These are (1) the condition of industry ; (2) the social habits ; (3) the position 
 of woman and the character of the family ; (4) the organization of government and the 
 character of the rulers ; (5) the state of public education ; ((i) the practical bearing of 
 religious doctrine and worship on actual life. These, as they are depicteil by the histories 
 and literature of Rome in the first century, all bear out Fronde's declaration that " within 
 historiccil times the earth has never seen — let us hope it never may see again — such a con- 
 dition of human society as prevailed in the Roman Empire during the centuries which 
 elapsed between the crucifixion and the conversion of Constantine." * 
 
 I. Of the inhabitants of Rome in the time of Paul fully one half were slaves. They 
 were so numerous that a proposition to dress them in a peculiar garb was negatived, lest, 
 recognizing their own number, they should also recognize their power, and so revolt. The 
 highest intellectual ability and the highest moral worth not infrequently wore chains in 
 Rome. " The physician who attended the Roman in his sickness, the tutor to whom he 
 confided the education of his son, the artists whose works commanded the admiration of 
 the city, were usually slaves."' Some of the noblest deeds of heroism, some of the most 
 magnificent acts of fidelity, recorded in the Roman histories of the period, are recorded of 
 slaves. But neither intellectual ability nor moral excellence were any protection to these 
 unhappy chattels, whose property, industry, powers, and lives were, under the Roman law, 
 the absolute possessions of an irresponsible master. Ovid and Juvenal describe the Roman 
 ladies as torturing their serving maids by thrusting the long pins of their brooches into 
 their flesli. Old and infirm slaves the elder Cato advised should be sold, but his humane 
 advice was often disregarded as involving too much trouble and too little recompense, and 
 they were left to perish on an island in the Tiber. Augustus crucified a slave for having 
 eaten a favorite quail ; Vedius Pt)llio threw a living slave into the fish pond to be food for 
 his fishes. The law provided for the execution of all slaves, not absolutely in chains or 
 helpless through illness, if their master were murdered. This law was no dead letter ; on 
 one occasion four hundred slaves were executed because their master had been assassinated. 
 It is to be said for the credit of the people, that a strong guard was necessary to carry the 
 execution into effect and prevent a threatened rescue. But death was infinitely preferable 
 to the horrible uses to which slaves were often forced when living ; the plaything of the 
 master's lust till it was satisfied and then sold or rented or driven into the seraglios for 
 
 • The English reader will find the material in Ulhorn's " Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism " ; Pressense'a 
 "Religions before Christ"; Froude's "Short; Studies on Great Subjects," Vols. 3 and 4; Froude's "Ca;sar"; 
 Mommsen's " Rome," Vol. 4 ; Milinan's ".History of Christianity," Book 2 ; Farrar's "St. Paul" ; Conybeare and 
 Howson's "St. Paul"; Renan's "St. Paul"; Renan'.s "English Conferences"; Lecky's "History of European 
 Morals," Chap. II. ; Gibbon's "Roman Empire," Chap. II. ; "The Life of the Greeks and Romans," by Guhl and 
 Koner ; Falke's " Greece and Rome " ; " Business Life in Ancient Rome," by C. G. Herbremann ; Smith's Diction- 
 aries of " Biography" and of " .\ntiquities," various articles; and the various Roman authorities cited in the above, 
 esi>ecially Tacitus, Juvenal, and Cicero. 
 
 ' Essay on " Origeii and Celsus," in Short Studies. * Lecky's " History of MoTtils," Vol. I., p. 323. 
 
44 PAUL'S LIFE AND LETTERS, 
 
 iniquities indescribable. The condition of the freemen of the lower class was but little 
 better. The great majority were paupers, always living on the edge of starvation, and 
 prevented from falling over into the abyss below only by great largesses of com bestowed 
 l)y tlie government or the opulent. The wages of a day laborer in Paul's time did not much. 
 e.\ceed twelve or fifteen cents a day. ' Labor is never honorable in a State where it is partlj' 
 performed by slaves. All honorable industry was dishonorable in Rome. Trades, and 
 handicrafts in the towns and cities and agriculture in the country were alike regarded as 
 menial occupations. Commerce was condoned because it brought in such large returns; 
 but the fortunate merchant purchased respectability at the earliest opportunity by buying 
 land and slaves to cultivate it. War was the only thoroughly respectable profession. 
 Middle class there was none. The State was composed of many beggars and a few million- 
 aires. " Nowliere, perhaps, has the essential maxim of the slave State — that the rich man 
 who lives by tlie exertions of his slaves is necessarily respectable, and the poor man who 
 lives by the labor of his hands is necessarily vulgar — been recognized with so terrible a 
 precision as the vindoubted principle underlying all public and private intercourse.'' ' How 
 numerous the poor, how few the well-to-do, is indicated by the reported fact, half a century 
 before the establishment of the empire, that the number of firmly established families 
 among the Roman burgesses did not exceed two thousand. The Roman workingman, 
 degraded to the level of the slave, or below it, with no hope of improving his condition, 
 and with no great fear of actual starvation in a land where life is so easily sustained as in 
 Italy, possessed a beggar's carelessness and a beggar's idleness ; and was fonder of the 
 theater, the tavern, or the brothel, than of his bench, his shop, or his employer's farm. 
 
 II. The accumulation of wealth, in the hands of the few, was as dangerous a symptom 
 of demoralization as the poverty, the ignorance, and the moral degradation of the many. 
 
 This concentration of wealth, thoi;gli it has been equaled, if not surpassed, in indi- 
 vidual fortunes in our own day and country, was accompanied by a luxury and self- 
 indulgence which is unparalleled in human history. If a community has moral earnestness 
 this will be shown by its disregard for mere sensuous enjoyments, and its appreciation for 
 and its pursuit of the intellectual and the spiritual. Its employments will be those of the 
 intellect ; its pleasures those of the imagination. The Roman had lost in the time of Paul 
 his old heroic character. Self-denial was an almost extinct virtue ; living only as a 
 memory of the past in the literature of Stoics who continued to preach but not to practice 
 it. Extravagant prices were paid for whims, sometimes almost, sometimes wholly without 
 a reason. Two hundred thousand dollars was paid for a country house whose chief attrac- 
 tion was its fish pond ; fifty thousand dollars for a cj"press-wood table. From two hundred 
 and fifty thousand dollars to four hundred thousand was expended by emperors like Nero 
 and Heliogabalus on a single banquet ; four thousand dollars by a successful actor for a 
 dish of singing birds ; and one historic gourmand, after spending four million dollars on the 
 pleasures of the table, took poison because only four hundred thousand dollars stood between 
 him and starvation. One of the ancient authorities gives us a bill of fare of a Consular 
 entertainment in Caesar's time. The sea-food which was provided before the dinner, 
 included the following courses : sea hedge-hogs, fresh oysters, large mussels, sphondyli, 
 fieldfares with asparagus, fattened fowls, oyster and mussel pasties, black and white sea- 
 acorns, sphondyli again, glycimarides, sea-nettles, becaficoes, roe-ribs, fowls dressed with 
 fiour, becaficoes again, purple shell-fish. This preceded the dinner. The dinner itself 
 we leave to the imagination of our readers. The eagerness with which appetite ran- 
 
 ' Mommseii's "Rome," Vol. IV : 607. 
 
THE PAGAN WORLD. 
 
 45 
 
 sacked f(»ivi<.;ii countries for some new dainty e(][iialed, if it did not surpass, the eager- 
 ness with which to-(hiy science searches for some new fact. It was not an unusual thing 
 to relieve the over-gorged stomach of its load by an emetic, that the gourmand might 
 complete the feast against which a wise nature would have successfully rebelled. The 
 drinking kept pace with the 
 
 gorging. Drinking revels ^^^g ^-"— t^J^^H^' - 
 
 known among the Greeks as 
 Symposia, were imported 
 thence into Rome. A Sym- 
 j)osiarch ruled the revels and 
 required of each drinker 
 that he consume his share 
 of the wine. Music, danc- 
 ing, games, and every de- 
 vice to both tempt the ap- 
 petites and incite the lusts 
 were introduced. But let 
 us give these revelers their 
 due. They had the wit to 
 prolong their bacchanalian 
 entertainments, and then- 
 fore mixed their wines witli 
 water that they might not 
 get drunk too soon. Hap- 
 pily, too, the art of distilla- 
 tion and its poisonous prod- 
 ucts which so (juickly fire 
 the brain and madden the 
 nature, were unknown. 
 
 "When we turn from the 
 pleasures of the table to 
 those of the bath, the thea- 
 ter, and the .street, the pict- 
 ure grows more appalling. Lust and cruelty are twins ; they were inseparable in the 
 Roman social life of the first century. The crimes which went on in the public baths ; 
 those which were daily perpetrated in the household ; those which Paul has hinted at in 
 the first chapter of his Epistle to the Romans, can not be described, nor even more fully 
 hinted at here. They are among the indescribable wickednesses to which human nature 
 has descended in its worst estate. The excesses of lust can only be suggested by saying 
 that they paralleled the excesses of cruelty ; and these surpass imagination. The gladia- 
 torial combats which had been begun as a religious service and sacrifice, and continued as a 
 means of educating the Roman soldiery to its art of war, had, by the time of Paul, degen- 
 erated into mere spectacles for the amusement of the people whose deadened feelings the 
 mock horrors of the stage could no longer excite. The liighest and most cultured men and 
 women flocked to the arena to feast their eyes on carnage and blood ; and each new 
 emperor invented a new form of horror to add to their pleasure and his fame. Ponipey 
 introduced a new form of combat between men and animals. Cajsar erected the first per- 
 manent arena and brought so many gladiators into the city that the Senate restricted thcii 
 
 A OKEEIC SYMPOSUM. 
 
46 
 
 PAUL'S LIFE AND LETTERS. 
 
 number. Aufj;iistu.s enlarged the number of combatants, allowing one hundred and twenty 
 to fi'dit in a single battle. The wooden structure of Cajsar gave place to the Colosseum 
 with a seating cajjacity for 80,000 spectators. Schools of gladiators were organized. Pro- 
 vincial troops of itinerant gladiators carried this horrible play of life and death into all the 
 neighboring Italian provinces. Slaves were compelled to fight for the amusement of the 
 populace. Death was demanded to keep up the flagging interest ; the spectators determined 
 by a si"n with their thumbs whether the prostrate combatant should live or die ; the usual 
 verdict justified the Greek cynics' protest against the introduction of this barbaric sport 
 into Greece : "You must first overthrow the altar of pity." Death by twos and threes soon 
 ceased to satisfy the horrible appetite for blood. Criminals dressed in the skins of wild 
 beasts were thrown to bulls maddened by red-hot irons. Four hundred bears were killed 
 in a single dav under Caligula ; three hundred in another day under Claudius ; four hun- 
 
 THE GLADIATORS. (" PoUice Terso." From the Painting by Geromt. J 
 
 dred tigers fought with bulls and elephants under Nero ; at the dedication of the Colosseum 
 five thousand animals perished ; under Trajan the games continued for four months. 
 " Lions, tigers, elephants, rhinoceri, hippopotami, giraffes, bulls, stags, even crocodiles and 
 serpents, were employed to give novelty to the spectacle. Nor was any form of human 
 suffering wanting. The first Gordian when edile, gave twelve spectacles, in each of w^hich 
 from one hundred and fifty to five hundred pairs of gladiators appeared. Eight hundred 
 fought at the triumph of Aurelian. Ten thousand men fought at the games of Trajan. 
 Nero illumined his gardens during the night by Christians burning in their pitchy shirts. 
 Under Domitian an army of feeble dwarfs was compelled to fight ; and mf)re than once 
 female gladiators descended to perish in the arena."' So implacal)le and unmerciful had 
 pagan Rome become, that even the moralists of the age either openly defended or mildly 
 
 • Lecky's "History of European Morals," 297, 8. 
 
THE PAGAN WORLD. 
 
 47 
 
 regretted tho^ic spectacles of an incredible inhumanity. It is true that Seneca and Plutarch 
 cundennied them ; but Cicero apologized for them on the ground that " no better discipline 
 against suffering and death can be presented to the eye " ; Juvenal, in all his satires, does 
 not intimate that gladiatorial coml)ats are inconsistent with humanity ; and, according to 
 Lecky, no Roman historian appears to think tliat there was any cause for national humili- 
 ation or public rebuke in the fact that three thousand men were compelled to fight in these 
 shows under Titus and ten thousand under Trajan, nor any other evil discernible than the 
 tendency to ju-oduce a dangerous class. The extent to which custom may brutalize the 
 feelings is singularly illustrated by the fiict that the gentle Suetonius, commending a friend 
 fnr granting a petition of the people of Verona for such a spectacle, adds : "To have refused 
 would not have been firmness — it would have been cruelty " ! 
 
 III. The position of woman and the condition of the family was what might be 
 imagined in such a state 
 t)f society as I have vent- 
 ured not to describe but 
 to outline. In the early 
 history of Rome, her men 
 were distinguished for 
 their heroism, her women 
 for their chastity, and 
 her homes for their sa- 
 crfdness. The Greek 
 and Oriental seclusion of 
 women was unknown ; 
 and at a time when no 
 Greek wife was permitted 
 to sit at the table with 
 her husband's guests, the 
 Roman matron habitually 
 occupied the post of honor 
 at the head of the table. The ancient legends of the Republic, the stories of the Sabine 
 wn)nen and the mother of Coriolanus, and especially the tragedy of Virginia, which 
 Macaulay has made familiar to every school-boy, show the honor in which woman was held 
 in the best days of Rome, and the care with which her chastity and the sacredness of her 
 commonwealth — the family — was guarded. It was the boast, apparently not a false one, of 
 one of her writers, that for five hundred and twenty years, a divorce was absolutely unknown 
 in Rome. But at the time of which we are writing, the age in which Paul lived and to 
 whicli he spoke, all this had passed away. The voluptuousness of the East had come in 
 with its luxury ; the degradation of women exceeded that of Greece, where wives were ke])t 
 in bondage and harlots were honored in society; the dishonor of the home surpassed that of 
 the East, where the harem still serves as a sorry substitute. Marriage in the Roman Empire 
 had become simply a civil contract ; its most common form was merely an agreement 
 between the parties to live together. The result of this pernicious practice was just what 
 we have seen it in our own day, though it was carried to an extent as yet unseen in America. 
 Divorce was as free and as fretpient as the most libidinous advocate of free-lust in our own 
 age could desire. There was practically no restraint upon it. Either party might dissolve 
 the marriage contract at will ; and when it was dissolved both parties might remarry. The 
 
 GRECIAN LADIES AND ATTENDANT. 
 
48 
 
 PAUL'S LIFE AND LETTERS. 
 
 highest moral teachers of Rome were not slow to avail themselves of this liberty. Cicero 
 repudiated his wife because he was short of money and wanted a new dowry ; Augustus 
 divorced Lina from her husband that he might take her for himself ; Cato presented his 
 wife to his friend Hortensius, and remarried her after Hortensius died. Any reason sufficed 
 for a divorce ; when none could be found, no reason sufficed equally well. Paulvis Emilius 
 divorced his wife, saying, "My shoes are new and well made ; but no one knows where 
 they pinch me." Such was the fatal facility of separation among the moral teachers ; it 
 may be imagined what it was among those who made no pretensions to morality. Seneca 
 declared that there were women in Rome who measured their years rather by their husbands 
 than by the Consuls ; Martial speaks of a woman living with her eighth husband ; Juvenal 
 of one Avho had married eight husbands in five years ; and St. Jerome is authority for the 
 statement that there existed in Rome a woman who had married her twenty-third husband, 
 and was his twenty-first wife. 
 
 This freedom of marriage and divorce had no eflfect to confine licentiousness within the 
 flexible limits of domestic life. It was at once a cause and an effect of a passionate self- 
 indulgence which knew no law and imposed on itself no limit. Marriage grew infrequent ; 
 childlessness common. In vain did the Emperor Augustus enact laws against celibacy, and 
 confer special privileges upon the fathers of three children. The disinclination to marriage 
 became so common that men who spent their lives in endeavoring by flatteries to secure the 
 inheritance of wealthy bachelors became a notorious and a numerous class. Slaves were 
 bought and sold in the market for the seraglio ; boys as well as maidens. Liaisons in the 
 first families were so common that only a scandal altogether exceptional gave rise to public 
 comment. Incest was a royal vice, and the fashion set in the palace was quickly followed. 
 Prostitution became so honorable that a special edict was promulgated under Til^erius to 
 prevent members of noble houses enrolling themselves as prostitutes. The edict was 
 unavailing ; his successor on the throne opened a brothel in his palace and sent public 
 invitations to the forum for inmates. But even this incredible enormity was surpassed by 
 Messalina, the wife of the next succeeding emperor, who, under penalty of torture and 
 even death, compelled the ladies of her court to practice the enormities in which she herself 
 rioted. Chastity, which liad been once the pride of the Roman Republic, had become a 
 perilous virtue, which could be maintained only at the liazard of martyrdom, and that 
 inflicted by a woman. Profligacy had reached the bottom of the abysmal depth. It could 
 no farther go. 
 
 IV. These well attested and unquestioned facts indicate at once the nature of the 
 
 Roman government and the 
 character of the Roman rulers 
 at this epoch. The govern- 
 ment was a military despot- 
 ism ; the rulers were at once 
 the creatures of the army and 
 its masters. Their power 
 knew no restraint from with- 
 out ; their nature knew no 
 restraint from within. There 
 was no legal limit to their 
 power imposed by any com- 
 petent and legal tribunal ; 
 There was none imposed by public 
 
 COIN OF NERO. 
 
 for the Senate was wholly subject to their will. 
 
THE PAGAN WORLD. 49 
 
 opinion ; Nero, who, in the varied combination of his crimes, perhaps surpassed both hia 
 predecessors and liis successors, was also perhaps the most popular emperor of his epoch. 
 There was none imposetl by public opinion in other nations, or by the fear of interference 
 from them ; for the Empire of Rome tilled the world, and the scepter of the Roman 
 Emperor ruled it. The evils of unlimited power have had many tragical illustrations in 
 human history, but none to compare with that afforded by the eighty years covered by the 
 reigns of Tiberius, Caligula, Clau<lius, Nero, Vitellius, and Domitian. "Their unparalleled 
 vices and the splendid theater on which they acted have saved them from oblivion. The 
 dark unrelenting 'i'il)erius, the furious t'aligula, the feeble Claudius, the profligate and cruel 
 Nero, the beastly Vitellius, and the timid inhuman Domitian, are condemned to everlasting 
 infamy. During these fourscore years (excepting only the short and doubtful respite of 
 Vespasian's reign) Rome groaned beneath an unrelenting tyranny which exteriiiinated the 
 ancient families of the republic, and was fatal to almost every virtue and every talent that 
 arose in that uiduippy period.'" Tiberius extended the law of treason so that any word or 
 act which he or his creature court thought disrespectful to the emperor was punishaljle 
 with death. Under this law a citizen was accused of high treason for having sold a statue 
 of the emperor with his garden. Caligula added to the excitements of a gladiatorial 
 combat in the circus by ordering spectators to be taken at random and thrown l^efore the 
 wild beasts ; added to the luxury of his meals by the nmsic of the shrieks and moans of 
 men tt)rtured before his eyes for his pleasure ; appeared in public now as Bacchus, 
 now as Apollo, now as Jupiter, now as Venus ; erected a statue of himself, required 
 public worship to be paid to it, and ordained his own horse as a priest of the worship. 
 Madman he probably was ; but what can be said of the moral degradation of a State 
 which allowed such a rule of such a madman for four years, and rid itself of him at last 
 only by assassination. If Caligula was (piite a madman, Claudius was almost an idiot. 
 The power behind the throne during his reign was first that of Messalina, " the worst and 
 the most shameless woman the earth lias ever known " ; and then that of Agrippina, the 
 monstrous mother of Nero, and the murderer of her own husband. Feebler but not less 
 cruel than his predecessor, his favorite pleasure is said to have been watching with keen 
 artistic delight the countenances of the dying in the gladiatorial combats. The hideous 
 tortures to which Nero subjected the Christians, falsely accused of setting Are to Rome, 
 created the not unreasonable belief at the time that he was the Anti-Christ foretold by New 
 Testament prophets. If we turn from this horrible portrait gallery of the worst tyrants, 
 whom absolute and irresponsible power made monstrous, to the condition and character of 
 such pretended restraints as were put upon their will by an abject Senate and corrupt 
 courts of justice, we no longer wonder that the people did not attempt to escape from the 
 despotism of the emperors by invoking the aid of either Senate or courts.^ It was, indeed, 
 only because in the universal corruption there was no refuge from despotism in any govern- 
 ment whi(;h the conununity could organize out of itself, that the despotism of such a suc- 
 ces.sion of tyrants was endured. 
 
 V. Such a government and such a state of society did nothing, did not endeavor to do 
 any thing, for the education of youth. All educational systems grow out of and presuppose 
 first a recognition of the value of the intellectual if not also of the spiritual element in 
 man, and second a looking forward to and preparation for the future. Both were wanting 
 
 » Gibbon's " Rome," Chap. III. 
 
 ' For a striking illustration of this universal corruption read the story of Oppianlcus as given by Froude in 
 "Society in the Last Days of the Roman KepuWic," riUtirt Studies, Vol. III. 
 
50 PAUL'S LIFE AND LETTERS. 
 
 in the Roman character in the first century. The Roman was essentially sensual ; and he 
 lived wholly in and for the present. Hence at a time when, in connection with every 
 synagogue in Palestine there was a school, and every father was required both by Rabbinical 
 law and public sentiment to give his son an education, which, though narrow and provincial,, 
 was both literary and practical, Rome contained nothing approximating a public school 
 system, and made no provision whatever for the education of its rising generation. The 
 Romans recognized no systematic training except in oratory, because they recognized no 
 science except that of government. The common method of publication of a new book 
 was for the author to read it himself, first to a select circle of friends, then in the theater. 
 Copying, the only other method of publication, was performed by slaves, and was accounted 
 a wholly servile occupation. The ability to write well if not to read, was a badge rather of 
 the servile than of the honorable class. And the professions of actors, pantomimists, hired 
 gladiators, and court flatterers, were the learned and honorable professions. 
 
 VI. Whatever power religion may once have possessed in Rome, it possessed no curative 
 power in the first century. Gibbon has in one of his characteristic sentences indicated the 
 fatal defect of Roman religion : " The various forms of worship which prevailed in the 
 Roman world were considered by the people as equally true ; by the philosophers as 
 equally false ; and by the magistrates as equally useful." When religion is commended, not 
 for its truth, but only for its utility, its real power over the hearts and consciences of men 
 is at an end. This was the case with the religion which still counted its temples by hun- 
 dreds, its priests by thousands, its apparent votaries by hundreds of thousands. But the 
 I very toleration of all religions showed the want of faith in any. Toleration may be the 
 I fruit of either the lowest or the highest moral culture, of a moral indifference that is 
 
 ■ careless of all faith, or of an assurance of faith that is undisturbed by any attacks upon it. 
 The toleration of Rome was of the first description. Religion among the intelligent had 
 
 ■ long since ceased to be a belief, and was rapidly ceasing to be even an opinion. " The 
 i educated in their hearts disbelieved it. Temples were still built with increasing splendor ; 
 
 the established forms were scrupulously observed. Public men spoke conventionally of 
 Providence that they might throw on their opponents the odium of impiety ; but of genuine 
 belief that life had any serious meaning, there was none remaining beyond the circle of 
 the silent, patient, ignorant multitude."' "The educated classes were divided between 
 avowed or virtual atheists, like the Epicureans, and pure theists like the Stoics and the 
 Platonists. The first, represented by such writers as Lucretius and Pretronius, regarded 
 the gods simply as the creations of fear, denied every form of Providence, attributed the 
 world to a concurrence of atoms, and life to spontaneous generation, and regarded it as the 
 chief end of philosophy to banish as illusions of the imagination every form of religious 
 belief. The other formed a more or less pantheistic conception of the Deity, asserted the 
 existence of Providence, but treated with great contempt the prevailing legends which they 
 endeavored in various ways to explain."^ This skepticism rapidly extended from the 
 cultured to the uncultured classes, who with a curious but not unusual inconsistency, con- 
 tinued to maintain with great gravity the worship of the gods after they had ceased to have 
 any real faith in them. Indeed, fsiith was not regarded as in any sense an essential to 
 worship. The Stoics taught that every man should duly perform the religious ceremonies 
 of his own country, though they despised them all alike ; and Cicero and Ciiesar were both 
 high officers of religion, though both disbelieved in it. The people laughed in the theaters 
 at popular satires of the gods whom tliey worshiped in the temples. The same Horace 
 
 ' Froude's " Caisar." ' Leckys " History <if European Morals," Chap. II. 
 
, THE PAGAN WORLD. 51 
 
 who wrote an ode in celebration of the deities, parallrls elsewhere the satire of Isjiiah in his 
 description of the carpenter deliberating whether he shall convert a log into a bench or into 
 a goil. Augustus solemnly degraded the stiitue of Neptune becjvuse his fleet had been 
 A\Tecked. The populace stoned and overthrew the altars of the offending gods when Ger- 
 inanicus died. The deification of the emperors, the hideous worshijj of Tiberius and 
 Caligula, would have been impossible in Rome, as, despite the Roman legions, it was impos- 
 sible in Jerusidem, if there had been any real faitli in the gods in the hearts of the people. 
 P)Ut nowhere more than in religion and in morals do extremes meet. Skepticism and 
 superstition are twins. As faith in the gods went out of fashion, faith in all sorts of 
 portents and auguries came into fashion. Every unusual phenomenon was supposed to 
 have some special bearing on life and some special significance in ftjretelling the future. 
 The belief in dreams was well-nigli universal. Astrology rose to great prominence. 
 Soothsjiyers and necromancers drove a profitable trade ; and the ablest and most eminent 
 political leaders — Marius, Ponipey, Crassus, C;Bsar, Tiberius — consulted them. But 
 whether the gods were regarded with derision or with superstition, religion had no prac- 
 tical bearing upon the moral life. The gods were neither pleased by goodness nor offended 
 by wickedness. Military regularity in the ritual of the temple was all that the most 
 devoted and pious rei^uired. They neither inquired into the sentiments of the heart nor 
 the actions of life. The gods of Imperial Rome are Roman men and women, only with 
 somewhat more gigantic vices because of more than human capabilities of evil. Bacchus 
 is a roystering feaster ; Mercury a dexterous robber ; Hercules a gladiator ; Jupiter a licen- 
 tious emperor. Worship and vice were not inconsistent. Drunkenness, says one of Rome's 
 sternest moralists, is a disgrace — except in the feast of Bacchus. Brothels were dedicated 
 to the gods. Ovid, in one of his most immoral poems, proposes Jupiter as a model of licen- 
 tious vice. Vespasian, dying, cries out, "Woe is me ; for I am about to become a god." 
 Worship was without reverence ; religion was without faith ; a life of piety afforded no 
 assurance of either purity or philanthropy. 
 
 Such was the condition of the capital of the world at the time when Paul lived and 
 preached and wrote. Labor dishonored and illy paid ; society wholly given over to .self- 
 iiiilulgence and sensuality ; woman now a tempter to vice, now an unwilling instrument of 
 lust ; the family neither held together by love within nor bound together by law from 
 without ; government an irresponsible despotism, under despots alternating between the 
 cruelty of madness and the cruelty of fear ; education confined to few persons and 
 limited to few and superficial themes ; and religion alternately derided by skepticism and 
 degraded by superstition, and neither aff"ording ideals of moral purity for worship or 
 sanctions to moral purity in life. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PAUL'S REMEDY FOR SIN. 
 
 PAUL, looking out upon the world in this condition, believed he possessed a remedy for 
 the terrible evils which afflicted it and the terrible sin which inhered in it. That 
 remedy is justification by faith. In this chapter I propose to set forth in broad, general 
 terms what I understand this reiiiedy to be, referring the reader to the notes for a discussion 
 of all critical questions of the meaning of texts, and therefore for the reasons in detail for 
 the views here presented.' It is only just to the untheological reader to advise him that 
 it differs in important respects from the view ordinarily entertained by theologians, whether 
 of the Protestant or the Roman Catholic, the Orthodox or the Liberal School. 
 
 The same word used in the same connection and by the same writer or school of 
 writers, has presumptively always the same substantial meaning. When it is a favorite 
 word, iterated and reiterated, by a writer of great earnestness and in critical passages, this 
 presumption is greatly increased. When it is evidently a key-word, when clearly the object 
 of his writings is to develop the truth hidden in this word, as the flower is hidden in the 
 bud, the presumption becomes a certainty. In such a case, to give to the word radically 
 different meanings in different passages, is to obscure, not to interpret, the author's meaning ; 
 it is to infuse into the writer's language the interpreter's opinions, not to ascertain and 
 interpret the opinions of the writer. Now there are two such words in the writings of the 
 Apostle Paul. They are pivotal ■words with him. The chief object of his writing is to show 
 what is the dikaiosunee (righteousness) of God, and how men may become dikaios (righteous) 
 in his sight by the exercise of jnstis (faith). But these words are not only differently 
 interpreted by the commentators, they are also differently translated both in the Old and 
 the New Versions. This is partly due to the imperfections of the English language, which 
 has no verb, except the old and now obsolete word righten to correspond to the word righteous- 
 ness, and therefore requires the substitution of the word justify y and which has no verb 
 corresponding to the noun faith, and therefore requires the substitution of the word believe. 
 It is partly due to the fact that Paul has been studied by school-men, according to scholastic 
 methods, and they have attributed to him their own subtle refinements, and in so doing 
 have obscured, and sometimes wholly expunged, by their interpretations, the broad, 
 spiritual laws which he delighted to expound, illustrate, and enforce. The word dikaios, 
 for example, is variously rendered "ju.st," "meet," "right," "righteous." The word jjzsizs 
 is rendered indifferently "assurance," "belief," "faith," and "fidelity," while its corre- 
 sponding verb is generally rendered "believe," but sometimes "commit," sometimes 
 "intrust." Thus, in the famous passage, Rom. iii : 21-26, where in a single sentence Paul 
 
 ' I do not, however, propose in these notes to follow to any considerable extent previous interpreters in their 
 discussions as to the supposed various meanings of these and other Pauline words. I shall attempt to ascertain by 
 a direct, independent study of Paul's own language what is his essential meaning, leaving those who desire to pursue 
 a study in comparative exegesis, to make for themselves the comparison between the interpretation aft'orded in this 
 volume and that which is afforded by predecessors in the same field ; and I shall refer to their interpretation only 
 when it is necessary to make my own meaning clearer. AMiile adhering in the text to the translations afforded by 
 the accepted versions, I shall, so far as practical)le, in the notes use different forms of the same English word in 
 rendering the different forms of the same Greek word used in Paul's writings. 
 
. PAUL'S REMEDY FOR SIN. 53 
 
 U8i's the one word {dikaios, dikaio-o) eiglit times, and the otlier {imtis, pistno) four times, the 
 former word is variously rendered righteousness, just, and justified; the second word is 
 \ariously rendered faith and believe. The English reader would never conceive from the 
 translation afforded l>y either version that Paul's object is to show how the righteousness of 
 ( Jod righteiis the faitliful ; that God had set forth Jesus Christ to be a propitiation through 
 faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness that he might be righteous and the rightener 
 of him that exercises faith in Jesus. Paul does not play upon words; he uses the same 
 word, reiterating it in different forms, to emphasize the same idea. Not merely the emphasis, 
 the idea itself is lost by the variation in translation. 
 
 The confusion thus involved by variation of translation is enhanced by still greater 
 variations of interpretation. Instead of pointing out the unity of Paul's thought, made 
 emphatic by this uniformity of language, the commentators still further obscure it by 
 imputing to the sjime word a wide variety of meanings. They analyze the sunlight ; we 
 get great variety of color, but no clearness. We are tohl of at least three entirely distinct 
 kinds of faith — historical faith, intellectual faith, saving faith. We are asked to believe 
 that Paul uses this key-word to mean sometimes belief, sometimes trust,' sometimes fidelity, 
 sometimes spiritual appreciation. Even go-eater liberty is taken with the other word, 
 dikaios (righteousness), and its derivatives. We are told of a personal righteousness and an 
 imputed righteousness, an active righteousness and a passive righteousness, of righteousness 
 as a gift and righteousness as an attribute. We are asked to believe that by this key-word 
 Paul sometimes means a character set right and sometimes a relation towards God set riglit, 
 sometimes rightness of character, sometimes mere Tightness in conduct, and sometimes a 
 fictitious or imaginary righteousness with which a man wholly iinrighteous is clothed, as 
 with a garment, as though an unwashed person were made clean by merely putting on clean 
 linen. 
 
 All this I believe to be utterly foreign to the simple, spiritual earnestness of Paul. It 
 employs the scholastic methods of an essentially Rabbinical school in interpreting a writer 
 whose Epistles embody a continual protest against the confusion in which those methods 
 had involved the plain and simple teaching of the Old Testament Scriptures. I believe 
 that in his writings these two Greek words dikaios and pistis (righteousness and faith) with 
 their corresponding verbs, dikaio-o and pistu-6 (justify and believe), always carry the same 
 substantial meaning. The shade may be different, the color is the same ; the inflection 
 may be different, the voice is the same. 
 
 And for an understanding of that meaning we are to go not to the classical Greek, not 
 to the Old Testament Scriptures, we are to go to Paul himself. It is always the character- 
 istic' (jf profound writers to use common words with meanings more profound than common 
 usage has attached to them. It is only thus that such a writer can express his meaning. 
 He must take common words to interpret thoughts that are not connnon. No man would 
 
 ' Tlie definition of faith as a purely intellectual act is perhaps the most common. It has at all events very 
 respe<-talile indoisers. For example : "The true nature of a faith of a Christian consists in this, that it is an assent 
 unto truths credited upon the testimony of God, delivered unto us in the writings of the apostles and prophets."— 
 I'enrson on the Creed. " Faith consists not in ignorance, but in knowledge ; and tliat not only of God, but of the 
 Divine Will." — Calvin InstiluUs. "Faith, in its proper elementary character, is belief and nothing else: and the 
 exercise of faith is just a believing exercise. It is just a holding of the things said in the Gospel to be true." — 
 Chalmers. " Accurately speaking, faith is an act of the understanding, giving credit to the testimony of the Gospel." 
 —Buck's Theologiml Dictionary. " By this (saving) faith, a Christian believes to be true whatever is revealed in the 
 VioTii." -We-ilminster Confession of Faith. Contrast with this the definition of faith given by the author of the 
 Epistle to thd Hebrews : " Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen," as interpreted 
 liy the illustrations which follow in the magnihcent paniu.'ania of the history of faith which constitutes the eleventh 
 chapter of Hebrews. 
 
54 PAUL'S LIFE AND LETTERS. 
 
 think of goin<^ to the Latin poet's use of the word deus to get his understanding of the 
 English conception of deity. The missionaries in China are almost at a stand-still in their 
 translation of the Bible because they can not find in the Chinese language a word fitting to 
 convey to the Chinese mind a conception of a supreme, spiritual Being. The word God 
 is not in the Chinese language, becau.se the idea God is n(^t in the Chinese mind ; and the 
 Christian teacher can only take the word that most nearly approximates that thought, familiar 
 to us but unfamiliar to them, and give to it a new meaning. The old carriage must be used, 
 but it must be made the vehicle of a new idea. The manger is the manger of cattle ; but the 
 child that is to be laid in it is the Son of God. It is thus that Paul uses the two words " right- 
 eousness " and " faith." Both are words familiar in classic Greek ; by universal consent 
 Paul gives them a profounder meaning than they ever bear in pagan writings. Both are 
 familiar words in the Old Testament ; I believe that Paul gives to them, especially to the 
 former word, a profounder meaning than it ordinarily bore in the Old Testament. He u.ses 
 these two words to answer the old, old question, How shall man be righteous before God ? 
 He .shall be righteous, replies Paul, by receiving through faith the righteousness of God. 
 " By the deeds of the law shall no fle.sh be righteous in his sight " ; that is his negative 
 answer. " For the righteousness of God is through faith of Jesus Christ revealed unto all 
 and conferred upon all them that exercise faith " ; that is his affirmative answer. Wliat 
 is his meaning ? 
 
 I. THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD. 
 
 It has been hotly discus.sed between different schools of theologians whether Paul's 
 phrase, " righteousness of God," means an attribute or quality which he possesses, or a gift 
 which he bestows ; whether God's righteousness means the righteousness which he has or 
 the righteousness which he imparts. If all that has been written in the discussion of this 
 question were gathered together, it would make a work of some volumes, and if all the 
 sermons which have been preached upon this question were included, it would make a 
 library of very respectable dimensions. The question is one purely about words. It has 
 no real significance. It seems not to have occurred for the most part to the disputants in 
 this theological controversy that God's righteousness may be both his possession and his 
 gift ; that the imagined alternative has no existence ; that what he bestows is himself ; that 
 he pours his own being into the souls of his willing children -That' he is a Sun of righteous- 
 ness, imparting his own life and warmth to that which without him would be cold, and 
 dark, and dead. Any system of interpretation which compels us to accept this alternative 
 and to give to Paul's phrase, God's righteousness, sometimes one meaning and sometimes 
 another, violates the axiom laid down above, and, by violating this sound and simple 
 principle of interpretation, leads into endless confusion of thought. 
 
 In the sixteenth and seventeenth verses of the first chapter of Romans, Paul affords ap- 
 proximately a definition of this favorite phrase of his. He tells us that God's righteousness 
 is revealed in the Gospel, and that the revelation of this righteousness constitutes the power 
 of the God unto salvation. To ascertain what Paul means by God's righteousness, we have 
 simply to inquire what is it that at the time of Paul's writing was revealed to Jew and 
 Gentile in the Gospel as it then existed. All discussion of the critical meaning of the word 
 in classic Greek, or of the use of the genitive, or of the significance of the peculiar form of the 
 word employed, is, if not absolutely out of place, certainly wholly subordinate to the in- 
 quiry, what there is which Paul found in the Gospel, and, finding, used as the power for the 
 .saving of men. Now, at the time when Paul wrote this Epistle to the Romans, the story of 
 the life, teachings, and death of Jesus of Nazareth, substantially as it exists now in the four 
 
, PAUL'S REMEDY FOR SIN. 55 
 
 Gospels, was known to tlie primitive churches. Whether tho.se Gospels existed in docu- 
 nientarv form or not, tlie knowledge of the tacts exi.sted, and the churches of Christ were 
 founded on that knowledge. The disciples had gone every-where telling the .story. They 
 were witnes.<ies of and testifiers to the truth of the history which has been embalmed for 
 us in the four evangelical narratives. This was the Gospel or Glad-Tidings of Chri.st. 
 The Gospel is a biography. What was and is revealed in tiiis story is Christ Him.self as the 
 manife-station of God. He is pointed out by John the Baptist as the King, and Judge, and 
 Law-giver, foretold by ancient prophets, who shall found the kingdom of God upon the earth. 
 He is announced by the angel to the expectant mother, by the star to the perplexed wise 
 men, by the host to the wondering shepherds, as the Coming One. He begins his mission as 
 a herald, he continues it as an expounder of the Kingdom of God, and of him.self as its King. 
 He ratifies and confirms the faith of his disciples. Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living 
 God ; declares to them of himself that no one can come to the Father but by him ; that 
 he has manifested the name and glory of the Father to his own ; that who.soever hath seen 
 him hath seen the Father ; that he and the Father are one. The light of his Divine life 
 grows clearer toward its close. To the multitude in the temple he proclaims him.self the 
 Son of the Great King, come to take possession of the Kingdom in the name and power of 
 the Father ; and finally put on trial for his life, before Caiaphas, for claiming Divinity, 
 before Pilate for claiming Kingship, he solemnly and officially reiterates his claim and ratifies 
 it by his voluntary death. His friends and followers take up this me.ssage from his lips. 
 Christ — Ills life, his death, his resurrection, is the theme of their preaching. They are the 
 heralds of a King ; their sermons are the story of his showing forth of the divine long- 
 .suffering and glory. " The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, in whom we beheld 
 the glory as of the only begotten of the Father," cries John. " Our Lord Jesus Christ, the 
 Lord of glory," cries James. " He made known unto you the power and coming of our 
 Lord Jesus Chri.st," .'^ays Peter. Paul him.self has left us in no doubt what he understood 
 to be revealed in the Gospel, for he has epitomized it in a memorable sentence : " Who 
 being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself 
 of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of 
 men, and being found in fashion as a man, humbled himself and became obedient unto 
 <leath, even the death of the cross?." The central truth, the sublime revelation of this 
 Gospel is not a plan, nor a scheme, nor a philo.sophy ; it is a living Person, a Divine Man ; 
 the One in whom and through whom God, the living God, is manifested unto men. 
 
 What the Gospel reveals then is the true character of God, and this a character which 
 is affluent, out-giving, self-revealing, self-imparting ; a character which perpetually comes 
 to seek and to save that which is lost. This was not the Jewish idea of righteousness, but 
 with this new idea Paul endeavors to clothe a word with which they were familiar, but 
 whose depths of meaning they had never sounded. 
 
 The lowest conceptions of God (except those which represent him as a mere blind 
 Force or Law) are those representing him as morally indifferent to crime, or as amiably 
 participating in it. The first is the Asiatic; the second is the Greek and Roman type of 
 paganism. Brahm lives in a perpetual beatific sleep ; he exists but does not live. The 
 gods of the Greeks and Romans were sentient but sensuous. The traveler in the Hartz 
 mountains is sometimes .startled by a gigantic apparition in the clouds which are about him, 
 until he di.scovers that his every gesture is repeated by the image which for the moment 
 aroused his .superstitious awe. The gods of Greece and Rome were but gigantic reflections 
 ca.st upon the clouds by Greek and Roman life. The people were awe-struck by their own 
 shadows. Righteousne.ss, or purity, or truth, or love are hardly to be found anywhere 
 
56 PAUL'S LIFE AND LETTERS. 
 
 imputed to the f^ods by the ancient writers. Such occasional pagan protests as that of 
 Plutiirch — "They will not hear either philosophers or statesmen that describe the majesty 
 of tlie Divinity as accompanied by goodness, magnanimity, benignity, and beneficence," — 
 only serve as attestations of the common belief The gods of Homer and Virgil are not 
 only feasting gods, but roystering, bacchanalian, drunken gods. They are not only sensuous, 
 marrying and giving in marriage ; they are openly and grossly licentious ; adultery and 
 rape are divine. They are vindictive, passionate, intriguing, mendacious. They are deifi- 
 cations of Ahab and Jezebel, of Machiavelli and Lucretia Borgia, of Henry VIII. and 
 Catherine de Medici. Well cried Vespasian on his death-bed, "Woe is me, for I am 
 about to become a god." 
 
 Far above this conception of a god of moral indifference is that of a god of intense 
 moral nature, so intense that he is utterly estranged from men of mean mold and base 
 lives. This is the conception which underlies much of Old Testament teaching. He is a 
 judge of all the earth and will himself do right ; he is a righteous judge, a God of right- 
 eousness ; his judgments are true and right altogether ; he is of purer eyes than to behold 
 iniquity ; he is angry with the wicked every day ; he will by no means clear the guilty. 
 This view of the divine purity of character runs all through the Old Testament. It was 
 taught by poet and prophet from Moses to Malachi ; was taught by the more eloquent logic 
 of events in the fulfilled prophecies of divine judgments on Babylon, Persia, Tyre and 
 Sidon, Egypt, Israel, and at last Judah herself It took fourteen centuries to teach the 
 Jews that God was one God and a God of holiness, justice, and truth. But at last they 
 learned the lesson, and when, four hundred years before Paul's time, they returned from 
 the seventy years' captivity in Babylon to their native land, they had learned thoroughly 
 and well this lesson, that God is a moral Being and a moral governor. They have never 
 forgotten it, and never will. The Jew will never become either an idolater or an atheist. 
 He will never worship man or nature. Theism has been wrought into his blood by nearly 
 forty centuries of education. Narrow he may be ; catholic he is not ; but pagan he will 
 never again become. 
 
 This, however, was as far as the Jews had gone in God's text-book concerning himself. 
 They believed in God as a moral governor but not as a moral ntirse, or Father, or Mother. 
 The Pharisee's .syllogism was a very short and simple one ; we can not to-day cast the first 
 stone at the Pharisees for accepting it. God hates sin, therefore he hates sinners ; all 
 pagans are sinners, therefore he hates all pagans. "When Christ preached his first sermon at 
 Nazareth and proved out of the Scriptures that God cared even for Gentiles, provided they 
 honored and obeyed him, his towns-people rose in a mob, drove him from the Synagogue, 
 and would have killed him if he had not escaped out of their hands. When Stephen, in 
 his address before the Sanhedrim, reminded his hearers that God called Abraham out of a 
 land of idolatry, and showed himself to Moses in the land of idolatry, the Assembly, as 
 soon as they fairly caught his meaning, gnashed on him with their teeth in their rage and 
 stoned him to death. When Paul, speaking on the tower stairs in Jerusalem, told the 
 listening Jews that God had sent him as an apostle to -the Gentiles, they threw dust in the 
 air, and rent their clothes and cried, "This fellow is not fit to live." These were not 
 merely the expressions of a race antipathy ; they were the expressions of a religious fanat- 
 icism. Christ, Stephen, Paul seemed to their hearers to be denying the first and funda- 
 mental article of Jewish faith, that God is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. That 
 there is a higher conception of God possible, because a higher conception of righteousness, 
 that he who abhors iniquity may show his abhorrence, not by withdrawing from it, but by 
 going forth to redeem the iniquitous, never entered their minds. That the righteousness of 
 
PAUL'S REMEDY FOR SIN. 57 
 
 Ciotl iniyht not separate him I'nun Imt iiuiifl liim toward sinful men, they did not and could 
 not conceive. 
 
 Christ in the outset of his ministry founded his teachin<^ on a very diflerent conception 
 of God's character. His tirst sermon was a declaration that he was anointed by God to 
 hring light to the ignorant, liberty to the enslaved, moral wealth to moral pauper.s. He 
 reiterated this in many different forms throughout his life teaching ; he declared God to be 
 a shepherd who left the ninety and nine sheep in the fold to go after the one wanderer in 
 the wilderness ; a woman who left the nine pieces of silver in the strong box to sweep the 
 door for the one which had rolled off into the dirt and darkness ; a father who went forth 
 with gladness to receive the prodigal son returning in rags, hunger, and wretchedness from 
 a wasted life of dissipation ; he declared himself to be a physician who had come to heal 
 the sick, not the well, to call sinners, not the righteous, to repentance. He emphasized this 
 teaching of his lips by his life. He passed by the orthodox church-goers to preach to the 
 outcasts ; he showed his abhorrence of sin b}' receiving sinners and eating with them, his 
 hatred of self-indulgence and sensuality by preaching to the drunkards and the harlots ; 
 and almost the last act of his life was a word of compa.ssion to a wretch whose susceptibility 
 to virtue was witnessed only by a remorseful backward glance along his past life, and a 
 longing look to the crucified One at his side for some vaguely hoped-for succor in the future 
 beyond the grave. 
 
 These two conceptions of character, the Pharisaic and the Christian, are strikingly 
 illustrated by one simple and beautiful incident in Christ's life. He had been invited to 
 il inner by a wealthy and apparently prominent Pharisee. In the free and easy life of the 
 Orient such dinner parties are not exclusive, nor even private ; a great throng crowded into 
 the open court-yard, and listened to the conversation. Among them was a woman of the 
 town, whose unholy calling was sufficiently indicated by her dress. She drew near to Jesus 
 as he reclined at meat ; as she stood there, his words recalled memories of her childhood, 
 or hopes long buried in despair of pure womanhood, and the tears welled to her eyes and 
 fell in big drops upon his naked feet, stretched out behind the couch on which he lay. 
 Startled, she knelt to wipe off the drops, and taking her long tresses — for she had nothing 
 else at hand — wiped the feet with her hair ; then, unresisted and xmrebuked, covered them 
 with her kisses, and taking from her bosom the box of ointment which had been used to 
 make her more attractive to the victims of her allurements, opened it and anointed his- 
 feet. The Pharisee looked on wondering. " If this man were a prophet," he said to him- 
 .self, " he would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him." 
 The notion that he could be a prophet and still know that, above the holiness that resents 
 the touch of the harlot, and infinitely removed from the sensuality that enjoys it, is the 
 divine purity that welcomes it when it is a sign of repentance and the harbinger of a new| 
 life, never entered his mind. A righteousness that builds a wall to keep sinners out he| 
 could understand ; a righteousness that is a gateway through which sinners enter into aJ 
 new and better life through blessed sympathy he could not understand. We ought not! 
 to be surprised at that ; since, after eighteen centuries of Christian education, the majority of 
 Christian men, not to say Christian teachers, do not understand it. Paul wrote to the 
 Romans that Christ was set forth to show that God's righteousness is of a kind that forever 
 goes forth to righten the unrighteous ; ami the great majority of Christian scholars convert 
 this into a declaration that Christ died to enable God to righten the imrighteous, in spite 
 "f his own righteousness, which otherwise would not have permitted him to do so. Chris- 
 tianity has barely gone far enough to believe that a Pharisaic God can forgive the sinful, 
 provided the obstacle presented by his righteousness is taken out of the way. 
 
^8 PAUL'S LIFE AND LETTERS. 
 
 II. JUSTIFICATION. 
 
 Paul's doctrine of justification grows naturally out of his doctrine of the righteousness 
 of God. The two are indeed but converse statements of the same truth. God justifies the 
 willing soul as Christ justified the woman that was a sinner, by imparting his own life to 
 whoever desires to receive him and become his child. In the endeavor to make this plain 
 it is necessary to clear away a confusion of thought resulting from a prolonged but mean- 
 ingless theological debate. 
 
 I have already noticed the fact that the words "justify" and "justification" are trans- 
 lations of the same Greek word rendered " righteous " and 'righteousness." Wliat Paul 
 means by justification is rectification or Tightening. What does that term import ? Does 
 it signify a change in the relations of the soul to God, or a change in its own inherent 
 character ? 
 
 Sin works two evils in the human soul ; it separates the soul from God ; it disorders 
 the soul in itself ; it is both an estrangement and a disease. If it did not separate from 
 God, it would still bring untold misery upon the individual and upon all connected with 
 him. If it brought no misery upon him or his, it would still be a terrible evil because it 
 separates him from his Father and his God. Both these evils must be done away in any 
 remedy which is offered for sin. The soul must be brought back to God ; it must also be 
 restored to itself, to a normal and spiritually healthful state. Now the question which 
 theologians have discussed through centuries of debate is, which of these two evils does 
 justification by faith remedy 1 Does it restore the soul to itself, working an inherent change 
 in the character, l^ringing back health and banishing disease ; or does it restore the soul to 
 God, bringing back the son to his father's house, and leave for further and future remedies 
 the restoration of the soul to its true nature ? 
 
 Protestant doctrine, dating from the days of Luther, is that justification imports simply 
 the latter change, the pardon of the soul by God, its treatment by him of his own free 
 grace as though it were righteous. It is declared to be a forensic term equivalent to ac- 
 quittal, and almost synonymous with "vindication. Luther declares that in justification we 
 work nothing, but receive what he calls a " passive righteousness," and this has been the 
 general view of Protestant divines. The Roman Catholics, on the other hand, with most 
 Unitarians and some orthodox but Liberal thinkers, maintain that justification is not an act 
 of treating as just, but of making just ; that it changes not the relations but the character 
 of the soul. 
 
 The debate between these two opposing theories, which was fierce in the time of the 
 Reformation and has continued in polemical theology ever since, like the debate respecting 
 God's righteousness, concerns a distinction with no difference. It is true that we may 
 metaphysically distinguish between making right the relation between God and the soul 
 and making right the soul itself, but the distinction is purely abstract and metaphysical, and 
 has no existence in actual experience. When the Prodigal son left his father's house and 
 wandered off into a far country, and associated there with drunkards and harlots and spent 
 his substance in riotous living, it is clear that he both separated himself from his father and 
 soiled and despoiled his own character. But he did both by the same act. If he had 
 remained under his father's roof and possessed the same spirit, he would have been as truly 
 separated from his father as he was when living in a far country. So, when he would 
 repent, it is equally clear that a double duty was laid upon him, that of abandoning the 
 evil habits of his own life and that of returning to his father and seeking his father's 
 pardon. But these also, though metaphysically separate acts, are in actual experience 
 
PAUL'S REMEDY FOR SIN. 59 
 
 iuseparable. The son could not take the first step toward a real and radical reform so l()ii<; 
 as he remained estranged and separated from his father ; neither could he bridge the cliasui 
 which separated him from his father without earnestness of purpose to reform, witliout 
 cetvsing to do evil and at least beginning to learn to do well. He might have gone back to 
 his fathers house impenitent, driven merely by hunger, but in this case the body, not the 
 soul, woulil have returned to the father, and the estrangement would have remaineil an 
 great as before. He might have remained in the far country, endeavuriug to cast off every 
 evil habit and association, and to come into a spiritual fellowship, with his father, to l^e at 
 one with him in spirit, and it might have been physically impossible to take the journey 
 back to his father's house, but in spirit he would have been restored to his father by the 
 very act of repentance and the aspiration for forgiveness. The restoration to the father 
 would be impossible without repentance, and the repentance would be impossible without 
 restoration to the father. This truth is beautifully expressed in the parable by the declara- 
 tion that when he came to himself he arose and went to his Father. Now, the soul tlut 
 has sinned has both estranged itself from God and impaired and despoiled its own powers. 
 It is impossible to get into right relations toward the Father which is in Heaven without 
 taking the first steps toward a recuperation of soul, and it is impossible to take the first 
 steps toward a recuperation of soul without returning penitently to the Father from whf)m 
 we have estranged ourselves. Whatever fine-spun distinction may be drawn in the library, 
 in the actualities of human experience the rectification of our relations with God and the 
 first steps in the rectification of our own souls, are not only contemporaneous, but absolutely 
 tlie same. When, therefore, Paul speaks of justification or Tightening, he means neither a 
 Tightening of our soul's relations with God — that is, a treating of the soul as though it were // 
 just — nor a Tightening of the soul in its own natttre — that is, making the soul just — he means ' j 
 this one simple, indivisible process, — the setting of the soul right in its relations with God, y 
 because setting it in the way of righteousness within itself, and the setting of the soul in |l 
 the way of righteousness within itself, because restored to right, that is, filial relation-s 
 with God. 
 
 It must be freely conceded that the Old Testament use of the words just, justify, 
 justification, has not the depth of meaning which is here imputed to it. In the Old Testa- 
 ment it is used ordinarily, if not exclusively, in the forensic sense. To justify is not to set 
 right, but only to declare right. " I will not justify the wicked " ; " They shaU justify the 
 righteous and condemn the wicked " ; " If I justify myself my own mouth shall condemn 
 me " ; " God forbid that I should justify you " ; " Speak, for I desire to justify thee " ; 
 "^Vhic}i justify the wicked for a reward."' The only passage in the Old Testament where 
 the word can be thought to have the larger spiritual meaning is Istiiah liii. 11 : "By his 
 knowledge shall my righteous aervmit justify many ; for he shall bear their iniquities"; and 
 even in this passage the meaning is possibly forensic. — My righteous servant shall secure 
 their acquittal by bearing their sins for them. The word occurs but twice in the Gospels, 
 antl then with the same significance of acquittal: " He willing to jtts<z/(/ himself " ; "Ye 
 are they which justify yourselves before men.'"' To one who regards the Bible as one book, 
 written on one plane, and with one uniform doctrine or thought, as fully developed by 
 Moses as by Paul, in the first century after the creation, as in the first century after the 
 Incarnation, this fact will be quite conclusive against the view which I am here presenting. 
 I do not so read the Bible. It is a book, but a book which grew from the seed to the frsit ; 
 
 ' Exod. xxiii : 7 ; Deut. xxv : 1 ; Job ix : 20 ; xxvii : 5 ; xxxiii : 32 ; Isa. v : 23. 
 
 ' Luke X : 20 ; xvi : 15. It will also be remembered by the student that Luke is sui)i)osed to have been 
 written under Paul's influence. 
 
60 PAUL'S LIFE AND LETTERS. 
 
 iU doctrine is a developed doctrine ; between the vague promise to Adam, " The seed of the 
 woman sliall bruise the serpent's head," and the prophecy of Paul, " Then conieth the end, 
 when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father. * * * Then 
 shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may- 
 be all in all," there is a gap of centuries of spiritual growth. The New Testament is not 
 a repetition of the Old ; it is a development out of the Old. The temple is one ; but the 
 Old Testament is the foundation, the new Testament is the superstructure. The word 
 which the Old Testament uses in a restricted, narrow, and formal sense, Paul uses with a 
 larger and profounder meaning. How shall I beccnne acquitted before God is the question 
 of the Old Testament. By having God's own nature imparted to you, and receiving him 
 into yourself, replies Paul. There is no escape from his condemnation except by becoming 
 his freeman, his child, his bride, the temple for his in-dwelling. 
 
 III. THE INSTRUMENT FOR JUSTIFICATION FAITH. 
 
 It is the object of Paul's Epistle to the Romans to show how this rightening is to 
 be effected, and what are the joyful results in spiritual experience here. And the general 
 conclusion which he formulates in Chap. III. is that by obedience to law shall no flesh be 
 Tightened, but by a life of faith. 
 
 The Jew knew no other way of securing either rest within himself or peace with God 
 than by obedience to the divine law. This was the burden of the Hebrew prophets: 
 "Cease to do evil ; learn to do well" — "What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do 
 justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God 1 " The preaching of John the Baptist, 
 last of the Hebrew prophets, was to the same effect : " What shall we do then ? " said the 
 people. — " He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none, and he that hath 
 meat let him do likewise," was the answer. And this was a necessary moral foundation for 
 the spiritual superstructure to be built thereon by Christ and his Apostles. It must be 
 remembered that in pagan religions — and in some forms of pseudo-Christian religions — 
 there is no organic connection between piety and morality, acceptance with God and right 
 doing toward men. The ancient chronicler who wrote of Cardinal Lorraine that " he is 
 far from truthful, naturally deceitful and covetous, but full of religion,'" had no intention 
 of writing a biting sarcasm. Louis XV., who kneeled every night to say his prayers with 
 his mistress at his side, had no conception that his religion was a travesty. Thou shalt love 
 the Lord thy God with all thy heart and soul and strength aiid thy neighbor as thyself, is a 
 marriage rite never performed outside the religion of the Bible. That there can be no 
 pleasing of God by a life evil toM'ard man was the first lesson to be taught the world, and 
 even the Christian world has not yet fully learned it. 
 
 But if the majority of mankind have fondly hoped to find some way of pleasing God 
 without the trouble of right living, the majority of those who have desired to promote right 
 living have imagined that the way to do it is to set up some standard of character and 
 conduct, and then by force of law — within or without, law of statute or law of conscience 
 — compel conformity to it. They expect to reform the character, not by transforming it 
 from within, but by conforming it from without. They expect not that it will grow into 
 right lines, but that it can be cut and carved or beaten and pressed into right lines. They 
 believe in the efficacy of a moral repouss^ work. The political reformer expects to set the 
 country right by making a right constitution and enacting under it right laws. The social 
 reformer expects to remedy the injustice and inequality of society by reorganizing the 
 community upon some type modeled after the pattern of the family. The father misreads 
 the Bible promise, and thinks that it assured him, Govern a child in the way he should go, 
 
PAUTVS REMEDY FOR SIN. 61 
 
 and whtMi he is old ho will not dopart from it. The individual expects to accept a law over 
 him from some e.\ternal authority — human or divine — or to set up one over him.self by the 
 edict uf his own conscience, and thus reform his character by compelling himself to con- 
 form to the standard thus recognized or established. This was the essential spirit of 
 Pharisjiism, which sometimes set up an ethical and even spiritual standard, sometimes a 
 ineri'ly ceremonial one, but always a standard to be obeyed, whether it was that of Hillel 
 or of Shammai. And this is the essential spirit of Puritanism, which aimed and stilf aims 
 to set right both community and individuals by setting over community and individuals a 
 law of life and conduct and re(][uiring obedience to it, under penalty of conscience in the 
 indivitlual, of the rod in the family, of fine or stocks or prison in the community. In the 
 first three chapters of Paul's Epistle to the Romans he sets forth this method of reforma- 
 tion, shows how it had been twice tried on a grand scale in human history, and how sublime 
 and sorrowful had liecn the failure. 
 
 Never was an Empire so well equipped for trying this method as Rome, mistress of the 
 world, mother of law. Never had any people a stronger conception of the dignity and 
 obligation of law, or an organization better adapted to compel the obedience of the unwill- 
 ing. She has given law to the world, and with it has furnished models of unswerving, 
 uncorrupted, and incorruptible administration. Roman justice is to-day a symbol of 
 absolute allegiance to law. Roman justice is the historic type of unswerving impartiality 
 in the execution of law. What is the result of this experiment at making a community 
 pure, and true, and temperate, and good, by the force of human law ? Paul, in the first 
 chapter of Romans, holds up the mirror before the face of Roman society, and bids it find 
 in its own reflection the answer to this question. 
 
 Rome had but human law, and human penalty to enforce it. Over against the Jewish 
 people the standard of God's perfect law was set up ; behind it thundered and lightened for 
 fifteen centuries his providential judgments. An inspired law-giver received and promul- 
 gated it ; prophets were sent to emphasize and to interpret it ; the Providence of God 
 followed the nation, punishing disobedience ; schools of scribes and rabbis were organized 
 to explain the application of those laws to every conceivable experience of human life, and 
 to invent new statutes where statutes were wanting from the original divinely given collec- 
 tion. The result of this experiment was equally a failure. The mirror held in the third 
 chapter before the Hebrew society shows no fairer features than the Roman portrait. 
 " What, then, are we better than they ? No, in nowise ; for we have before proved, both 
 Jew and Gentiles, that they are all under sin : as it is written. There is none righteous, no 
 not one."' The attempt of men to work out reformatiinx either in the community, the 
 family, or in the individual by laws and penalties, will inevitably fail. This is not the 
 divine way of accomplishing the rightening of either society or the human soul. By the 
 deeds of the law shall no Hesh be rightened in his sight.' 
 
 To avoid the force of this conclusion, theologians have invented a distinction between 
 the moral and ceremonial law. They have supposed that Christ abolished the ceremonial 
 but retained and reinforced the moral law, and that Paul taught that men could not be 
 justified Vjy obejnng the ceremonial regulalions witliotit intemling to take off from them in 
 the slightest degree the pressure of the obligation of the moral code. In fact, however, no 
 such distinction between the moral and the ceremonial is recognized in the Old Testament 
 or in the New. In the Old Testament the moral and the ceremonial regulations are so 
 
 ' Romans i : 26-32 ; iii 9-18. The conclu.sioii from this historic study of tlie I'tfects of tlie h^gal niethoil of 
 reform is stated iu Chap. III. : 19. 
 
62 PAUL'S LIFE AND LETTERS. 
 
 woven together that it is impossible to separate them without separating the very warp and 
 woof of the Okl Testament books. In the New Testament Christ declares that not one jot 
 nor one tittle — that is, not the smallest letter or the smallest accent — of the Hebrew law shall 
 pass away till all be fulhlled. There is, it is true, a real distinction between mural and 
 ceremonial laws ; between those which are founded on and derive in a sense their authority 
 from the universal conscience of mankind, and those which are prescribed for a temporary 
 purpose in the administration of a special ritual ; but it is not true that Paul recognizes any 
 such distinction as this or allows that the moral law plays any greater part in justification 
 than the ceremonial. He takes the broad ground that men who find themselves estranged 
 from God, and impaired and diseased in soul and spirit, are not to attempt to return to God 
 or restore themselves to health by obeying laws, whether human or divine. The process of 
 reformation and restoration is entirely different. 
 
 Will it then be said that law is of no use ? that all law is abolished by the New Testa- 
 ment ? that all men are freed from the obligation of law 1 This has been said, but this- 
 is altogether too broad a deduction from Paul's premises. He asserts, not that there is no 
 use for law, but that it is not by obedience to law that man or society is to be reformed. 
 There is a use for law, and in his epistle to Timothy he very clearly states what that use is : 
 " Law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and unruly, for the ungodly and 
 sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for 
 man-slayers, for fornicators, for abusers of themselves with men, for men-stealers, for liars, 
 for perjured persons." Law is useful in restraining evil men and protecting the innocent 
 and the law-abiding from their lawlessness. It is necessary that the wicked and the disobe- 
 dient should be made to feel the force of law and should be kept under its necessary and 
 wholesome restraints. It is useful, too, in restraining men from inflicting injury upon 
 themselves, by their own disobedience, and in keeping them under such circumstances as 
 render it possible to bring reformatory influences to bear upon them. But law and -penalty 
 are not of themselves reformatory. So far is it from being true that the object of punishment 
 is the reformation of the offender, that in strictness of speech it is hardly true that this is 
 even one of the objects of punishment, whether in society by the penitentiary, in the • 
 family by the rod, or in the individual by the penance. The only, or at least the chief, 
 I reformatory effect of punishment is to compel a pause, and thus render it possible to bring 
 other and higher influences to bear upon the offender. 
 
 Paul's declaration, then, " by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his 
 Bight," is not merely as against Pharisaism, that obedience to ceremonial law can not save the 
 soul from sin ; nor as against the moralist, that obedience to the moral law can not vindicate 
 the sinner from sins previously committed ; it includes both of these principles, but it is a 
 much broader statement than either or both of them combined ; it is the enunciation of the 
 broad, general principle, that reformation of morals and of life, whether in the individual, 
 the household, the government, or society, can not be brought about by the enactment of 
 laws and an enforced obedience to them through fear of penalty. 
 
 God's method for the reformation of character is far different from that on which the 
 world has placed so great and so vain reliance. The divine plan for the improvement of 
 character is by the play of higher natures upon lower natures. It is by personal influence, 
 not by penal enactment. On this plan is the family, the great institution for the Imilding 
 of character, formed. The child is made what he is, not chiefly by the laws imposed on 
 him by the father, nor even by the deliberate conscious instructions afforded by him, but 
 by the pervasive influence poured out upon him. He drinks in courage or cowardice, 
 kindliness or selfishness, vanity or humility, with his mother's milk. When he gets beyond 
 
PAUL'S REMEDY FOR SIN. 63 
 
 the educative influences of lii.s t'atlier's house lie is sent to school, that he may receive the 
 personal inliuences ot" experienced teachers. In college, his character is molded by the 
 character of the instructors and the class-mates with wlu)m he is in most vital and con- 
 tinuous sympathy ; and in all the after life he is made what he is by the influences that 
 come in upon him from the companionships by which he is surrounded. A man's character 
 is not only known by the company he keeps ; it is determined by the company he keeps. 
 
 Now, the source and reservoir from which all uj)building influences come is God 
 himself. As the mother im})arts to her child, as the teacher to his pupil, as the orator to 
 liis audience, as the hero to his nation, so throiighout the ages God is imparting himself to 
 all who will receive his influence, and he is doing this through the Lord Jesus Christ, the 
 manifestation and disclosure of God upon the earth. To become Christ-like we are not 
 merely to obey Christ's laws ; this is not even the first step. We are to enter Christ's 
 household of faith, we are to become pupils in Christ's school, we are to put on Christ as a 
 garment, we are to dwell in Christ as in a house, we are to be grafted on Christ as on a 
 vine, we are to feed (ju Christ as on bread and wine, we are to be married to Christ and be 
 molded by our life with him. Not by attempting to square our life to any rule and law, 
 even the ten commandments or the Sermon on the Mount, but by throwing open our soul 
 to the influence of the Life-giver, we are to be made like him. The children of God are 
 born not of blood, — deriving their hereditary virtues from their fathers, nor of the flesh, — 
 purchasing them by their own resolutions, nor of the will of man,— compelled in the way of 
 virtue by the force of others' wills, but of God, — receiving his life as the plant receives light 
 from the sun, and giving it forth again as the plant gives that light forth in all its varied 
 coh>rs. By the outpoured influence of God himself upon the human soul, by the outpoured 
 influences of God-inspired agencies — prophets, patriarchs, preachers of righteousness, Bib- 
 lical and post-Biblical, ordained and unordained— the human soul and so human families, 
 liuman society, and human g()vernment, is to be cleansed, purified, perfected, in one word, 
 rightened in the sight of God. He does not wait till a soul is rightfened before he receives 
 it to himself ; he does not receive it to himself before it is rightened. But he counts heart- 
 hunger for righteousness ; aspiration for achievement ; desire for result. He sees the 
 harvest when the seed is sown ; he recognizes the future saint when the sinner turns to 
 him for help toward sainthood. To desire God, to seek God, to perceive him, to open the 
 heart to receive him, this is faith. Not to believe something about him, but to believe in 
 him ; not to hold an opinion, but to lay hold of God him.self. And the instant the soul,' 
 awaking from its long slumber, reaches out its arms in groping after God, God reaches out 
 his arms and draws the soul to himself, and there, as the babe nestles to its mother's side, 
 and draws its life from the current of her own life, so the soul that is born of God is drawn 
 to his bosom, and lives by the life which flows from him. 
 
 This is Paul's doctrine of justification by faith. Not that God has a righteousness 
 which prevents his hjve from working out love's benediction on guilty men, a righteousnes.s 
 which must somehow be swept away by the death of his Son in order that Gotl may righten 
 the unrighteous in spite of his own righteousness ; not that if a man believes certain reve- 
 lations concerning Jesus Christ as the sin-bearer and Saviour of the world, God takes that 
 right opinion for righteousness and acquits the believer of his wrong and counts him 
 righteous ; but that God has a righteou.sness which is forever putting itself forth in divine I 
 influences for the rightening of others ; that this divine, forth-putting righteousness of God, / 
 is seen in the life and character and death of Jesus Christ his Son ; that he who abandons/ 
 his sins, and opens himself to receive sympathetically this sunshine of divine, redeeming; 
 love, is instantly brought under its beatific influence ; the seeds of aspiration are countedj 
 
-64 PAUL'S LIFE AND LETTERS. 
 
 for the fruits of holiness ; in the spring of desire the divine, prophetic hope perceives the 
 autumn of ingathering ; and the life for which the soul hungers is bestowed upon it, not as 
 a reward of obedience, but as a free gift of love, — given by grace, received by faith, and 
 wrought out to its perfection by the ministrations of the word, the discipline of a divinely 
 ordered life, the fellowship of the saints, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 IV. PROPITIATION. 
 
 According to Paul, redemption is wrought through the sufferings as well as tlie life 
 of Jesus Christ. This truth is variously expressed by him, and with no inconsiderable em- 
 phasis. " 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." " "VVliile we were 
 yet sinners Christ died for us ; much more then being justified by his blood, we .shall he 
 saved from wrath through him." " He that spared not his own Son but delivered him up 
 for us all." " I determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified.'" 
 " He hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin." " In whom we have redemption 
 through his blood." Such are a few of his expressions, the specific meaning of which will 
 be considered in their proper place ; it must suffice here to note the fact that Paul puts un- 
 questionable emphasis on the suff'erings and death of Christ ; that they are not in his 
 thought accidental, or incidental ; that they have entered largely into the divine plan for 
 the rectification of human life and character ; and that no interpretation of Paul's writings 
 which passes over this aspect of them can be regarded as other than either partial or super- 
 ficial. I must, however, remind my reader that in this volume I am simply an interpreter. 
 I am not endeavoring to set forth a complete scheme of theology ; I am simply endeavoring 
 to elucidate the ^\Titings of one great author ; and adhering strictly to this specific purpose, 
 I ask him to consider with me simjily what is the significance which Paul attaches in his 
 writings to the sufferings and death of his Master. For the purpose of this inquiry we 
 must, however, first go back and inquire into the condition of the minds of the men — both 
 Jews and Gentiles — whom he was addressing. 
 
 Sacrifice has existed from the earliest historical ages of the world, and among all 
 nations, as a method of expression of the spiritual life. Whether sacrifice was commanded 
 by God to the first parents of the race, as some have supposed, or whether it was the 
 natural expression of the profound and universal religious feeling, as seems to me far more 
 probable, both from Biblical and extra-Biblical history, it is not now important to in(|uirt'. 
 It is enough for our purpose to know that in Persia, Babylon, Egypt, Phoenicia, Judea, 
 Greece, and Rome, as well as among the barljarous Goths and Vandals of the North, suffer- 
 ing, and sacrifices, and death, were the commonest method of expressing spiritual experi- 
 ences, whether of penitence, or devotion, or gratitude. It is equalh^ certain that the general 
 spirit and tenor of the Old Testament Scriptures tended to guide and restrain rather than 
 to stimulate this sacrificial habit. The Old Testament statutes were not indeed prohib- 
 itory ; but neither were they mandatory ; they were regulative and restraining. Hence 
 the very first law on the subject of the altar for the sacrifice was one forbidding elab(jra- 
 tion and expense : " An altar of earth shalt thou make unto me, * * * and if tliou 
 wilt make me an altar of stone thou shalt not build it of hewn stone." It was to be of the 
 simplest possible construction. Similar in spirit are the laws regulating the sacrifices to be 
 offered. In the surrounding nations sacrifices were measured by their costliness. And 
 since no outpoured wealth was adequate to express what the soul in its deepest experiences 
 felt, and since human life was rightly accounted the most sacred thing, human life was 
 
PAULS REMEDY FOR SIN. 65 
 
 frotjuently oftereil on tlie altiirs to the gods. Captives taken in war were sacrificed in 
 gratitude ; and cliildren were laid upon the altar by their parents a« the supreraest expres- 
 sion of penitence, the supremest uieiins of expiation, or the supreniest utterance of devotion. 
 When Abraham was told to ofl'er up his oidy son Isaac to God, he could give to the inward 
 iiujiulse no otlier interpretiition than tliat which has too often been given to it since, that 
 I if a divine comiuaud to slay his son; until God's angel interfered to tlivert him from his 
 purpose, and teach him that God measures sacrifice not by the value of the thing offered, 
 but by the reality of the inward life which prompts the offering. The Mo-saic statutes on 
 tlie subject of sixcrifice, if they are carefully examined, will be seen to be, in their general 
 teTidency, if not in their every clause and section, aimed, not to stir up a reluctant people 
 to In-ing ade(iiiate siicrifice to God's altar, but rather to restrain a superstitious people from 
 multiplying sacrifices and measuring their devotion by the cost to themselves of what they 
 put upon the altar. Any lawyer, reading the first chapter of Leviticus for example, would 
 at once declare that these provisions were to be classified with directory, not mandatory 
 statutes ; that their object, apparent on their face, is to regulate and restrain, ratlier than 
 to incite and compel sacrifice. If you bring an offering it shall be without blemish ; a 
 bullock, or a sheep, or a turtle-dove, or a piece of meat roast in the oven, or first-fruits from 
 the field — no matter what, — such is the spirit of the law — .so that what is brought is not 
 picked out because it is useless for any other purpose. If the worshiper can, let him 
 bring a lamb ; if not, then two turtle-doves ; if not so much as these, then a little fine 
 flour. ' 
 
 If we turn from the law to the writings of the inspired prophets, this restraining ten- 
 <leney of the sacred writings of the Jews is still more apparent. All through their history 
 is discernible, as there has been ever since, the two streams of influence, one proceeding 
 from the temple and the priesthood to emphasize the importance of the ritual of sacrifices, 
 and one from without the temple to minimize the significance of its sacrificial services. The 
 stream of dissent from sacrificial ritualism is continuous and unbroken from Samuel to 
 Malachi. ' '' Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt-off"erings and sacrifices as in obeying 
 the voice of the Lord ? Behold to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat 
 of rams" ; this is the utterance of one of the earliest of the long line of prophets. " From 
 the rising of the sun to its setting, my name shall be great among the nations ; and in every 
 place incense shall be offered to my name and a pure oflFering " : this is the utterance of the 
 latest. ' 
 
 Now the first thing to be noticed about Paul's treatment of the death of Christ is that 
 it is simply a cf)ntiuuance and consummation of this constant stream of dissuasion from a 
 merely sacrificial and ritualistic religion. For, in spite of restraining statutes and more 
 elo(juent restraining words of prophets, the sacrificial ritualism had grown strong. The 
 religion of Judaism was a twofold religion ; of minute ceremonial regulations of life by the 
 Pharisaic doctors of theology, and of elaborate and costly sacrificial ceremonial by the 
 priesthood of the Temple. The whole service of the Temple was expressed by the one 
 word, blood ; its whole economy was ba.sed on the pagan notion, rooted in the Jewish 
 mind in spite of Hebrew law and Hebrew prophet, that the greater the outpouring of 
 blood the greater the appeas(^ment and satisfaction of God. " Hundreds and hundreds f)f 
 
 • Leviticus, chaps, i, ii, iii. ' 1 Sam. xv : 'J'2 ; Malachi i : 11. 
 
 ' .See for other examples Tsalm xxiv ; 1 : 7-14 ; li : lO, 17 ; Lsaiah i : 10-20 ; Aino.s v : '21-24 ; Micah vi : 6-S. 
 Note, too, that never do the prophets urge on the people the duty of saiTitice, or iiialie it a condition of divine 
 favor, which is always represented as depending wholly on practical reiientancc and righteousness, e. g., Isaiah 
 Iv : 6, 7 ; Iviii : 1-7 ; Jer. xviii : 7-10 ; xxii : 2-5 ; Ezckiel, chap, xxxiii. 
 
66 PAUL'S LIFE AND LETTERS. 
 
 lives of sheep, every Passover, as well as at every Pentecost and every feast of Tabernacles, 
 were borne into the Temple and carried or driven into the court of the Priests, and there 
 slain, the blood being caught by the priests in bowls and dashed upon the altar. Hour 
 after hour the whole day long the spectacle continued. The secret channels down through 
 the rocks, toward the king's garden, gurgled with blood.'" Over all a truly prophetic 
 soul might have heard the remonstrance of the ancient prophet, " To what purpose is the 
 multitude of your sacrifices unto me, saith the Lord. I delight not in the blood of bullocks 
 or of lambs or of he-goats. Wash you ; make you clean ; put away the evil of your doings 
 from before mine eyes ; cease to do evil ; learn to do well." But their ears were dull that 
 they could not hear. Nor was this practice of employing bloody sacrifices as a method of 
 expressing religions life, and this notion that bloody sacrifices were necessary to appease and 
 gratify the deity, confined to Judea. The whole ceremonial of Judea was confined to one 
 temple ; and the Jewish faith in God was more sincere, and the Jewish sense of account- 
 ability to him more deep and strenuous than in light-headed Greece or sensuous Rome. But 
 if the sacrificial service was less continuous in pagan lands, it was sometimes conducted on a 
 larger scale ; and the notion that the spiritual value of the service depended on the money value 
 of the thing sacrificed was more deeply rooted. It was not uncommon to offer on special 
 occasions a hundred bullocks at a time, and even human sacrifices had not been wholly 
 eliminated, by either the levity of spirit or the development of civilization, from pagan rites. 
 Now Paul's writing is to be interpreted in the first place in the light of these facts, and 
 as the climax and consummation of the long line of preceding Hebrew prophets of whom 
 he was the last. To the silent but intense objection of the pious, whether Jew or pagan — 
 what becomes of our sacrifices 1 how shall God be appeased, and devotion to him expressed ? 
 Paul's answer was ready : Christ is our propitiation. He is our Passover. He is our first- 
 fruits. He is our sacrifice. It is through faith in his blood we have access to God. The 
 highest, supremest life has been laid down for us ; we need no other. The drops of blood 
 that trickled from his hands are all ; there is no need of a hundred bullocks, or of rivers 
 of blood flowing beneath the temple floor. As a Protestant preacher to a Roman Catholic 
 penitent who should ask. What penance shall I suffer for my sins 1 might reply, Christ is 
 your penance, you need no other ; so to Jew and Gentile who asked, bewildered by a teacher' 
 who proclaimed the unbought Gospel of God's free love : What, then, shall we do for a 
 sacrifice ? Paul replied, Christ is our Passover ; set forth to be a propitiation; henceforth 
 in his blood we have access unto God and peace with him. Looking back along the 
 line of history, we can not doubt that this teaching has wrought a revolution in the 
 Church of God, greater and more radical than we are wont to recognize. Since Paul's 
 day sacrifice as an expression of religious life has been utterly abolished wherever Paul's 
 writings have exercised a dominant influence on the religious thought of any people. Then 
 it was universal ; now it is unknown. No longer the Ibwing of cattle, the bleating of 
 Iambs, the cooing of doves, the blood of victims greet ear and eye in any temple court. 
 The place of worship is no longer a place of butchering. This crude, barbaric, pagan cqn:^ 
 ception of religion, permitted under restraint by the Mosaic law, swept away as puerile and 
 needless by Paul's teaching, exists now only in two forms — in Romanism in the mere idle 
 figment of an unbloody sacrifice in the Mass, and in Protestantism in the theological notion 
 still lingering in symbols and sermons, like memories of a morbid past in a deserted cloister, 
 that God is a being who could ever be appeased by the slaughter of cattle under the Old 
 Testament or needed to be appeased by the de^th of a Divine Martyr, under the New 
 
 » H. W. Beecher's " Life of Christ," p. 156. 
 
PAUL'S KEMEDY FOR SIN. 67 
 
 Ti.'staiiu'nt ; o\ that f^iii is an t-xternal blot that can be washed away either by rivers of 
 1)1(km1 of beasta or drops of blood of the Son of God. 
 
 Christendom is, however, in these later days rapidly coming to a profoiuidcr, more 
 spiritual, more Biblical, more Pauline, more Christian conception of sacrifice. It is no 
 mere incident in human hi.story ; it is essential to all true, noble character; it is not some- 
 thing; extraneous imposed by necessity upon either God or man, but soniethin},^ intrinsic, 
 .sprin<;ing from the very necessities of love; it is not the means chosen ileliberately for a 
 purpo.se, it is the spontaneous expression of a divine life. 
 
 This truth stands out very clearly in Paul's writings. The death of Christ was no 
 mere chance production of a mob, .seized upon by the apostle to sweep a superstitious relic 
 of barbarism from the religion of the world. It was no mere glorious act of martyrdom, 
 symbolic and stimulating of human courage and enthusiasm. It was part of God's eternal 
 design. Christ came to tlie earth that he might suffer. To suffer was as truly a part of his 
 mi.ssion as to te achj_an unsiitl'erinj^Iessiali couldju.(i m.ore have been_tlian an unteaching 
 Messiah. I need not go back to the Old Testament prophecies, to such pas.sages as Isaiah's 
 famous picture of the Man of Sorrows, to show that this thought lay interwoven in the 
 more spiritual anticipations of the Hebrew people. I need not quote from the Evangelists 
 such passages as John's report of Christ's sermon at Capernaum, to show that it was inter- 
 woven in the life and teachings of the Master him.self. For I am here endeavoring to 
 interpret not Isaiah, nor Christ, but Paul. It suffices to say that he simply reiterated in his 
 own strong and idiosyncratic way this fundamental truth, that the manifestation of God 
 to men wa.s in a_svLffering^ Messiah. "Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation"; 
 " whom God hath (jiven"y " whom God hath made to be sin for us"; "God commenddh his 
 lore in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us." Paul even declares that it is 
 because of the humility, and suft'erings, and death of the Messiah, that God has highly 
 exalted him and given him a name which is above every name.' It is true also that he, 
 in common with the other writers of the New Testament, represents the sufferings and 
 death of Chri.st as no mere episode in the divine administration, but the disclosure of an 
 eternal fact. The laying down of the life in the incarnation is only an outward revelation 
 of a laying down of the life which never ceases and never can cease so long as there is sin 
 in God's universe, and love in God's heart. The death of Christ is but a making known to 
 us the mystery of his w'ill " which he hath purposed in himself ; even the mystery which 
 hath been hid from ages and from generations, but is now made manifest to his saints." * 
 So Peter declared, with that audacious disregard of logical consistency so characteristic of 
 the .Sixcred and indeed of all spiritual writers, " Him being delivered by the determinate- 
 coun.'^el and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and 
 slain." So John calls him a " Lamlj slain from the foundation of the world." In all this 
 there is something more than the mere assertion that God foresaw the death of Christ as 
 he foresaw that of Stephen or that of Paul himself ; there is the far profounder truth im- 
 plied, that the death of the Messiah was a revealing of the sitffering and sacrificing nature 
 of him who is the same yesterday and forever, and who can never look on sin and sulfcriiig 
 without being moved to take the burden on himself and bear it for those he loves. 
 
 Philosophy has busied itself in <liscussing the question why Christ suffered. What 
 terrible necessity lay upon God to deliver up his only beloved Son ? What exigency 
 plaited a crown of thorns and nailed him to the cross 1 To rescue men from Satan, siud 
 ancient scholars. To appease God's wrath, siiid Calvinism. To make it safe for God to 
 
 ' Phil, ii : 6-9. a Ephes. i : 9 ; Col. i : 26. 
 
68 PAUL'S LIFE AND LETTERS. 
 
 forgive sin, siiid New England. To exhibit God'.s love, say« a modern school. Paul gives 
 to this question no answer. Nowhere in his Epistles does he so much as consider it. The 
 effect of Christ's death he does explicitly define ; the object of it he does not seek to probe. 
 Perhaps there was no object ; rather — this would be a truer statement — the object lay in 
 the nece.ssities of God's own nature, not in compulsion br(jught to bear upon him by Satan, 
 the necessity of his government, or even the moral needs of men. A mother is weeping 
 bitter tears over the sin and folly of an apostate son. The philosopher inquires into the 
 cause of the tears. " Why do you weep, madam 1 " he says. " What useful service can 
 tears render ? Will they appease the hiXiar indignation of your own heart against the 
 ingratitude of a rebellious son ? Do you .shed these tears that you may make it safe to forgive 
 his wrong-doing and receive him that was an outcast to your love again ? or do you think 
 perchance that tears will produce an efl'ect on him whom neither fear of punishment nor 
 hope of reward could move, and do you weep to move him to repentance ?" I think I .see 
 the wonder changing into indignation in the mother's heart as she turns upon her philo- 
 sophic inquirer her questioning eyes, and replies : " Ah ! you do not know a mother's heart 
 or you would ask no .such questions as these. She weeps, not to appease her wrath, nor to 
 make forgiveness safe, least of all, believe me, dramatic tears to make a .show withal to 
 move and melt the on-looker ; she weeps becau.se she is a mother and her boy is in sin, and 
 because love always and by the very necessity of its nature must weep when sin wounds 
 it." Why did David cry, " Oh, my son Absalom ! my son, my son Absalom ! would God 
 I had died for thee, Absalom, my son, my son ! " Why did the father of the Prodigal 
 Son go forth to meet him with compassion in his heart and tears in his eyes, fall upon his 
 neck, and kiss him ? Answer me that, and I will tell you — this, I imagine, would have 
 been Paul's answer to the question — why God gave his only-begotten Son that whosoever 
 believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. The sacrifice of Christ was the 
 cry of God over a lost world, " Oh, my son Absalom ! my son, my son Aljsalom ! I die for 
 thee, Absalom, my son, my son." 
 
 But though Paul does not discuss the object for which Christ died, as though tliere 
 were some ulterior end to be served by divine, suffering love, of which it took account and 
 which it deliberately went about to accomplish by suffering, he does declare very explicitly, 
 in unequivocal language and in magnificent trope and figure, the re.sult accomplished by 
 divine siiftering love : " In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness 
 of sins." ' What then does Paul mean by the forgiveness of sins 1 
 
 IV. — THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS. 
 
 The word rendered "forgive " in the New Testament {(.(p'lTjfii) is one meaning literally, 
 to send away, to dismiss. What the New Testament promises to do for men is not merely 
 to remit the punishment but to send away the sin itself. When Christ says to the sick of 
 the palsy, " Thy sins be forgiven thee," what he really says is. Thy sins are sent away from 
 thee ; and when the Pharisees accuse him of blasphemy they ask not, Who can release from 
 punishment, but who can cleanse away sin but God only. The choice by the inspired 
 writers of this peculiar word is the more significant that it is not the word most frequently 
 used in profane Greek to express the idea of forgiveness.^ That word is one signifying to 
 
 • Ephes. i : V ; Col. i : 14 ; and see references below. 
 
 2 It is true that this same word (a<|)tT);oii) is sometimes used in the classics to express the idea of forgiveness ; 
 but generally it is clearly expressed that what is sent away or dismissed is the charge, or the flogging, or the death 
 sentence, not the sin. 
 
PAUL'S REMEDY FOR SIN. 69 
 
 have IVllow fooliiij,' for aiKither {avyyanjuKu), and liciice to have compassion on liiin and make 
 allowance lor him. The siiered writers have taken the one word in the Greek which can 
 express the idea that the sin it^self is sent away, and liave given emphasis to this conception 
 of forgiveness by using this word to the exclusion of the other.' I believe that there is a 
 profound, .spiritual signiHcance in the choice of this word. Paganism knows of no possible 
 succor from sin ; no conceivable relief for the sinner. It can have a feeling of sympathy 
 for him ; it can release him from the infliction of a penalty ; but it can do no more. The 
 Bible, and only the Bible, brings him the message of the forgiveness of sins — that is, the 
 remission dismissal, cleansing away, extinction, annihilation, of the sin itself. 
 
 The meaning which I have given to the word most commonly used in the Bible to 
 express the Bible doctrine of the forgiveness of sins is not the nu^aning most commonly 
 given to it by the Church ;'" though tlie truth has found more abundant expression in 
 Christian experience tlian in dictionaries and commentaries. It is expressed in the familiar 
 lines — 
 
 " Be of sin the double cure, 
 Save me from its guilt and power"; 
 
 and it is certiiinly, throughout the Scriptures, Old Testament as well as New Testament, 
 the thought which the inspired writers are burdened to express. Sin is a cloud, and divine 
 forgivene.ss the sun which drinks it up ; sin is a stain, and divine forgiveness a bath which 
 cleanses it away ; sin is a dross, and divine forgiveness a furnace which burns it out ; sin is a 
 blurred and blotted record, and divine forgiveness is an erasure of the page from life's book ; 
 sin is a burden, and divine forgiveness buries it in the depths of the sea. These figures surely 
 mean something more than the mere remission of penalty. Divine forgiveness is divine 
 cleansing. This truth, of which Christian consciousness has even yet hardly gi'asped the full 
 significance, was expressed in the Jewish ritual by the curious object teaching of the great 
 Day of Atonement. Two goats of equal size, shape, color were selected ; a scarlet thread was 
 bound upon the horns of one to represent the sins of the nation ; on it, in a prayer of con- 
 fession, the sins of the year were laid by the High Priest ; and then, while the twin goat 
 was siicrificed, the scape-goat was led off into the wilderness, bearing the scarlet thread and 
 the burden of a nation's sins, to be seen no more. A curious ritual ; but efficacious, if any 
 ritual could be, to teach the lesson that the forgiveness of sins in the divine thought is no 
 jiiere letting off a criminal from the punishment he deserves, but the riddance from the 
 criminal forever of the stain, and burden, and memory and inwrought evil of his crimes. 
 
 Now this doctrine of the forgiveness or remission of sins is nowhere in the Bible more 
 clearly set forth than in the writings of the Apostle Paul. With him the terror of sin was 
 not in the remorse which it produces, nor in the penalty which it entails, nor even in the 
 spiritual .separation from God which it must always involve, but in its own inherent enor- 
 mity, in what he calls with characteristic rhetoric the " exceeding sinfulness of sin." No 
 other word but sin can express to his consciousness the exceeding evil of sin. And no 
 forgiveness would help him much which simply took away the penalty and left the sin. 
 Forgiveness is the riddance from the soul of sin itself. Redemption is not from the grasp 
 
 » In Luke vi : 3" airoAvoi is used and in Luke vii : 42 and in 2 Cor. ii : 7, 10 ; xii : 13. Ei)he8. iv : 32 ; Col. 
 ii : 13 ; iii : 13, x<>pt^OMai is used, but never miyyivuxTKut. 
 
 » Til us Creraer, in his "Theological Lexicon of New Testament Greek," says: "The expression {a(f>iriiii) 
 denotes, where it does not stand for social relations, the abrogation of the Divine legal claims upon man ; the 
 remission of the amount due or of the punisliment due for imperfect, sinful conduct. That is deliverance from 
 the endurance of the divine judgment." 
 
70 PAUL'S LIFE AND LETTERS. 
 
 of the devil, not from the wrath of God, not from the penalty, natural or inflicted, which 
 follows sin, — though it includes all these ; it is redemption from sin itself, " the forgiveness 
 of sins " ; that is the remission, the sending away of sin. I am carnal sold under sin. I 
 am bound to the corrupt and putrefying corpse of sin. But I thank God through Jesus 
 Christ our Lord, who hath made me free from the law of sin and death : This is Paul's 
 personal experience of the redemption which is afforded by Jesus Christ. 
 
 Now, according to Paul, the great cleanser from sin is not law enforced by penalty; not 
 wisdom aff'orded through teaching ; but sympathy ' expressed through suffering. This is the 
 sun which drinks up the cloud, the bath which washes away the stain, the power which 
 buries in ocean depths the burden, the High Priest who sends away the sin-burdened scape- 
 goat. This great truth — greater by far than any mere scholastic notion of a mechanical or 
 judicial reconciliation effected by the pre-arranged martyrdom of a single Sufferer — runs 
 through the entire fabric of Paul's teaching. Sometimes it is offered as a consolation or an 
 inspiration to the individual sufferer. " No process (jf education," says he, or one of his 
 disciples,^ "seems to be joyous, but rather grievous ; but afterward it yieldeththe peaceable 
 fruit of righteousness to them that are exercised thereby." Sometimes he finds in it a 
 cause of rejoicing even in the midst of the flames : " We glory in tribulation also ; know- 
 ing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience ; and experience hope ; and 
 hope maketh not ashamed." Sometimes he uses it in reading the riddle of the ages, the 
 problem of the world suffering : " The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain 
 together until now ; and not only so but ourselves that have the first fruits of the spirit, 
 even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, even the redemption 
 of our bodies," — waiting that is until the long travail shall end in a new created world. 
 Sometimes, perhaps oftenest, he points to the supreme factor in this economy of suft'ering 
 for sin, the life and death of the Divine Sufferer : " We have redemption through his 
 blood, even the forgiveness of sins." 
 
 Surely any thoughtful reading of Paul's Epistle should have prevented men from falling 
 into the blunder of thinking that to Paul Christ was merely an example and a teacher, antl 
 that blood was to him but a symbol of the life and spirit of the world's Messiah, which saves 
 us as we imbibe it. Surely Paul could not express more clearly than he has done, by his 
 favorite and oft-repeated imagery of redemption, the doctrine that the soul is purchased 
 by the suffering of the ]\Iessiah from the bondage to sin into which it had voluntarily sold 
 itself. But surely any thoughtful and reverent study of the life and death of Christ shouhl 
 have also prevented his followers from falling into the gross, sensuous, materializing notion 
 that there was a difference between the blood of Christ and that of other mortals,, or that 
 salvation from sin depends in any sense upon the literal blood poured out on Calvary. For 
 in fact that sacrifice was an almost unbloody sacrifice. No vital part of the crucified one 
 was touched. A few drops trickled down from the brow pierced with thorns ; a few from 
 the hands and feet pierced with nails ; but only after death did blood and water pour out 
 from the heart already broken under the burden of the world's sin, and then so little 
 importance did the Spirit of God attach to this mere incident of the crucifixion, that only 
 one of the evangelists was inspired to record it. Many a martyr, both before and since, has 
 suffered far greater physical pains than the cruelty of the Romans could inflict on Jesus in 
 the three short hours of his crucifixion. Not by the drops of blood, not by the fevered 
 brow and burning thirst and racked limbs and joints, did the world's Messiah atone for the 
 world's sin. But history records no such spiritual agony as was his ; an agony which has 
 
 ' In the literal sense : entering into the experience of another. - Hebrews xii : 11. 
 
PAUL'S REMEDY FOR SIN. 71 
 
 oven invested the Garden of Getliseniane with a mystery which forbids us from drawing,' 
 neaivr than the behned diseijdes drew on that eventful nij^ht ; an aj^ony which wrenched 
 from him on the cross tlie uninterj)retahle cry, '* My God 1 my God ! why hast tliou for- 
 s:iken me I " and broke the overburdened lieart l)efore the sh)W torture of the crucifixion 
 could accomplish its work. 
 
 Nor is the common assertion that Christ's death consummated and comphtted all sacri- 
 fice for sin consistent either with experience or the teacliings of the Apostle Paul. Under 
 • every error that has ever laid deep hold of human hearts is some sublime truth. The Roman 
 Catholic notion of a perpetual sacrifice repeated in every mass could never have j^otten the 
 hold it has on human hearts, and in Christian experience, did it not shadow forth a sublime -/ 
 truth. As Christ left it to his Church to complete the teaching which he began, s(j he has 
 left it to his Church to complete the suffering and sacrifice which he began. Every heart - 
 throb ^ndured Jjv unselfish love forthe cleansing of another's sin is part of the atoning 
 sacrifice. Every mother's tears which moisten the long dormant seeds of a nobler resolution 
 in her child and give them life, every heart-throb of the father quickening the latent im- 
 jnilses of his child to a manlier life, every sacrifice of patriot for his nation's redemption, ( 
 every suffering for sin from the blood of Abel crying out from the ground, which awoke a.s 
 from the dead the conscience of the fratricidal Cain, down to the last tear which God shall 
 wipe away from his children's eyes, are a part of the great perpetual atonement which 
 divine love is making in the hearts and lives of the true followers of a suffering Messiah 
 for the sins of the whole world. Each suffering disciple becomes in his own spliexti a-eacri- 
 fi ce for sin . a> his Master was foFThe wlioTe world. This is what Christ meant when 
 he said, Except a man take up his cross and come after me he can not be my disciple ; when 
 he promised the two throne-seekers that they should drink of his cup and be sharers in 
 his baptism ; when he gave to the ten the commission, " As the Father hath sent me into 
 the world even so send I yon. Receive ye the Holy Spirit. Whosesoever sins ye forgive' 
 they are forgiven, and whosesoever sins ye retain they are retained." This is what Paul 
 meajit when he cried out, " I count all things but loss * * * l^liat 1 may know him, 
 and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made con- 
 formable to his death." This is what he meant by the declaration, "I fill up that which is 
 lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake which is the Church." 
 As the artist dots the outline and leaves the pupil to complete the picture, so Christ 
 .sketched as in outline love's suffering for sin, and left it to his followers to fill out 
 and complete the sacrifice by the long cycle of martyrdoms. Without suffering is no sin 
 i-leansing. 
 
 And as it is the great cleanser, so also suffering is the great reconciler. It is the fire 
 which purifies, and it is the fire which fuses. This truth is expressed, as so many other 
 truths are, by the very word we use most commonly to express reconciliation in its pro- 
 founder aspects ; — sympathy. To sympathize is to suffer with. If the father of the 
 paraljle had not .suffered cold in his son's nakedness, hunger in his son"s famine, and 
 humiliation in his son's shame, there could have been no common ground on which to meet. 
 It is through suffering that strength comes to give power to the weak ; that pity comes to 
 lift up the penitent from his sin. It is the ladder down which the divine descends, up 
 which humanity ascends. The sufferings and death of Christ is the manifestation in history 
 of the eternal truth that " He knoweth our frame, he reraembereth that we are dust." 
 So knowing, and so remembering, how can he take us to himself except by his own suffering 
 both with and for us ? 
 
 The Greek word is aphiemi, usually rendered forgive. 
 
72 PAUL'S LIFE AND LETTERS. 
 
 Something such I understand to be Paul's doctrine of propitiation, no more truly 
 sounded to its depths here, or ever to be sounded by a human interpretation, than the 
 fathomless blue of the summer sky by human telescope ; enough if the telescope makes 
 clear that the sky is a fathomless depth, not a mere dome. 
 
 V. — SALVATION. 
 
 And now we are ready, I trust, to inquire what is the end of justification and propi- 
 tiation and redemption. To what purpose, or rather to what result, is man justified, 
 and, by the propitiation that is in Christ Jesus, redeemed from sin and its consequences ? 
 Being justified or Tightened by Christ's blood, being reconciled to God by Christ's death, 
 we are saved by his life.' What is this salvation through the death and the resurrection 
 and the eternal life of Christ, which is the end and outcome of the Gospel? The most 
 common conception of salvation, as the most common conception of forgiveness, makes the 
 two synonymous, and both equivalent to escape from the just punishment of sin — perhaps 
 from the natural penal consequences, perhaps from the inflicted judgments of God, perhaps 
 from his aroused wrath and indignation, jjerhaps from all three. 
 
 The world is compared to a wreck, the sinner to a sailor struggling in the waves and 
 about to perish, the Gospel to a life-boat which seizes on him and draws him out from the 
 devouring waves, and so saves him from that destruction which by sin and guilt he had 
 brought upon himself. Or a future punishment condign and terrible is reckoned against 
 the sinner, from which, on certain conditions, he will be released and suff'ered to go free. Or 
 lie is compared to a convict in a prison ; by the sentence of condemnation pronounced 
 against him he has ceased to be a citizen of the kingdom of God ; he is no longer in the 
 relations of a free and innocent man with the king or governor. But the king or governor 
 signs a pardon and sends it to the prison. This pardon is conditional, and if the prisoner 
 accepts the condition the prison door is opened, he is restored to his liberty, and his citizen- 
 ship, and comes back again into right relations, the relations of a free citizen to the moral 
 Governor of the universe. But neither of these was Paul's conception of salvation, and 
 though these figures are often found in modern teaching, they are not to be found in Paul's 
 letters. In the sixth and seventh chapters of Romans he illustrates his conception of sal- 
 vation by three figures. The sinner was dead, he is saved when he is raised from the dead. 
 The sinner was a slave, he is saved when he is set free from his slavery. The sinner was 
 married to the world, the world is dead and he is saved when he becomes married to 
 Christ. Let us trace out the meaning of these three figures if we can. 
 
 I. Paul uses the figure of death and resurrection in inconsistent ways. He did not 
 hesitate to mix metaphors nor to use the same metaphor, sometimes in one form, sometimes 
 in another. Such violations of faultless rhetoric are characteristic of ardent natures. 
 Sometimes he .spoke of the sinner as dead in trespasses and sins. Lazarus is in his tomb. 
 Christ comes to the door of the grave, the stone is rolled away. Christ calls, Lazarus, come 
 forth, and he that was dead comes forth, still bound about with the grave clothes, still 
 hauipered with the evil habits of his dead condition, but soon to be released and ushered 
 into the perfect liberty of the divine life. Sometimes, on the other hand, he represents the 
 sinner as living, following his Lord to Golgotha, not merely bearing the cross but lifted up 
 upon the cross by his side, crucified, put to death, entering into the tomb with his Lord, 
 and with his Lord rising and coming forth into the new and divine life, a life now hid with 
 
 > Rom. V : 10. 
 
PAUL'S REMEDY FOR SIN. 73 
 
 Christ, but to be made niauilV'st when Christ is inatU' manifest in his glory. But underlying 
 both these figures the same t-ssential truth is represented ; salvation is the death of the 
 sensual and the animal uatuii-, it is the resurrection and mastery of the spiritual and 
 divine nature, it is a new and divine life. The resurrection of Christ was not merely an 
 historical fact once for all accomplished. The historical fact was the prophecy, the symbol, 
 (if a fact to be spiritually accomplished in the spiritual experience of every believer. To 
 I'aul, the material fact was less than the spiritual verity ; the truth of history less than the 
 truth of spiritual life ; the resurrection, achieved once for all, less than the perpetual resur- 
 rection which it symbolized. Death in its highest sense was but a calm indifference to all 
 things sensual and earthly ; resurrection in its highest sense was the advent of an enfran- 
 chised soul into a new life of invincible immortality. The death of Christ was only the 
 natural culmination of a life which had been throughout a death to the world, and his 
 resurrection was only the assured expression of a divine life which from baptism to Golgotha 
 had been in heaven. So, while Paul emphasizes the historical fact of the resurrection in a 
 single eloquent chapter, he emphasizes in repeated utterances the spiritual fact which that 
 historical resurrection expressed to the eye and the under-standing. " I am crucified with 
 Christ ; neverthele-ss I live ; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me ; and the life which I now 
 live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loves me and gave himself for 
 me." This is the Christian's Passion week ; his death and resurrection. We are buried 
 with Christ in baptism ; our old man is crucified Avith him ; I count all things but loss that 
 I may be made conformable unto his death ; we are dead, and our life is hid with God 
 in Christ ; we are crucified with Christ ; tlie world crucified unto me, and I to the world — 
 this is Paul's Good Friday. Dead unto sin, but alive unto God, through our Lord Jesus 
 Christ ; risen with Christ, and therefore seeking those things wliich are above where Christ 
 sitteth ; having our ccjnversation in heaven ; dead, j^et living, because Christ, the risen 
 Christ, liveth in me ; risen, rather rising, following after him daily, if by any means I may 
 attain unto the resurrection of the dead — this is Paul's Easter Sunday. This is surely 
 something more than either release from divine punishment or even reconciliation to an 
 offended God. 
 
 II. His second symbol of salvation is that of the enfranchisement of the slave. The 
 sinner is a bondsman. To understand this metaphor, we must remember that under the 
 Roman law the slave was the actual property of his master. He could put him to torture 
 or t(j death at his pleasure without being called to account by the law, and without even 
 being answerable to public opinion. Inhumanity was not counted inhumanity when exhib- 
 ited toward a slave. The most intellectual and cultured were held in slavery. The well- 
 known anecdotes of Flaminius ordering a slave to be killed to gratify by the spectacle 
 the curiosity of a guest, and Vedius Pollino feeding his fish on the flesh of slaves, 
 and of Augustus sentencing a slave who had killed and eaten the favorite quail, to 
 crucifixion, are among the recorded illustrations of Roman slavery.' The sinner, according 
 to Paul, is such a slave to his lower nature. He is compelled to do the things that he would 
 not do. He is prevented from doing the things that he would do. He is tortured by 
 remorse. He is chained to a dead body from which he in vain endeavors to escape. He 
 is under a cruel and loathsome despotism. To him Christ comes as an emancipator and sets 
 Iiim free. Wlio shall deliver me from this body of death ? 1 thank God through Jesus 
 Christ our Lord. The emancipated comes at once under a new and .sacred obligation to his 
 emancipator. He owes nothing but love ; but of all obligations love is the most sacred. His 
 
 ' Lecky's "History of Euro2)eaii Morals." 
 
74 PAUL'S LIFE AND LETTERS. 
 
 boiKlagp is lirokou. Like the slave girl bought in Plymouth Church by the enthusiastic 
 contributions of the congregation before the civil war, and thus ransomed from the servi- 
 tude to which she was before subject, only to be ushered into a high and sacred obligation 
 as a free woman to truth and purity and fidelity and patriotism, the soul, that aforetime 
 was a slave to its fleshly lusts, becomes, in the realm of spiritual liberty, a bondsman of Jesus 
 Christ. Being made free from sin, ye became bondservants of righteousness ; as ye have 
 presented your members as servants to uncleanness and iniquity unto inicj^uity ; even so 
 now present yourselves as servants of righteousness unto sanctification.' This emancipation 
 of the soul from bondage to its lower self, this transference of its allegiance from a despi- 
 cable and despotic and hard master who imposes upon it a compulsory servitude, to an 
 allegiance to a loving, Divine, and glorious Master who requires of it nothing except in the 
 court of love and generous fealty, is surely something more than a mere exemption from 
 punishment, or a mere restoration to the political approbation of a moral governor. 
 
 III. The third figure which Paul employs to illustrate his conception of salvation is 
 that of marriage. " Ye are become dead to the law by the body of Christ that ye should 
 be married to another, even to him that is raised from the dead." ^ The figure is one bor- 
 rowed from the Old Testament, and not even in Paul's use is it more beautiful than in that 
 of Jeremiah.' In the light and airy way in which we customarily take upon ourselves the 
 marriage obligations, how little do we realize their full import. The bride pledges herself 
 to become her bridegroom's in the ownership of love. She sinks her individuality, she 
 drops her very name. She goes out from her home with all its sacred associations. She 
 exchanges for an unknown future the love of father and mother and friends. The book 
 written all over in letters of life and of love she closes never to open it again, and leaves 
 her husband to open a new journal and write on it what he will, in the hope that his char- 
 acters will be more sacred, more loving, more full of true life than those that father and 
 mother, brother and sister, school-mate and friend, have written. And the bridegroom, on 
 the other hand, little realizing how much he is receiving and how much he is pledging, 
 pledges himself to make good her hopes, to give his bride a better name than hers has been ; 
 a more sacred home ; a more golden lettered book ; a more protecting arm ; a more ten- 
 derly loving heart. This is the figure which Paul chooses in the endeavor by his three- 
 fold illustration to set forth before his readers his conception of the salvation which is 
 offered in Christ Jesus. The saved one turns away from all that was sacred and sweet and 
 dear in the past ; whatever things he counted gain he counts henceforth as but loss, nay, 
 but as dung to be trodden under foot, if so be that he may win the love of Christ. He 
 takes on him Christ's name ; his hopes look forward to Christ's home ; his heart lays hold 
 upon Christ's love ; and Christ, standing by his bride's side and putting upon her finger 
 the ring that is the pledge of his love, accepts her plighted troth and plights his own, be- 
 comes the saved one's husband, gives his bride his own name, assures her his protection, 
 receives her to his home, bestows upon her his love, and asks permission to write for her the 
 record of her life for the coming years. Surely ! surely ! this is something more than 
 mere exemption from punishment, something more than the promise of the school teacher 
 to throw away the ferule, something more than the parchment of the moral governor of the 
 universe before which the prison doors fly open, something more than the recovery of the 
 half-drowned seaman from the waves that were engulfing him. Salvation, in Paul's por- 
 trayal of it, is a new life from the dead ; a new liberty of the enslaved ; a new and glorious 
 union in love with the Divine Son of God. It is adoption to the household of God. It is 
 
 » Rom. vi : 18, 19. * Rom. vii : 4 ; comp. Ephes. v : 22-33. " Jer. iii : 1-14. 
 
PAUL'S REMEDY FOR SIN. 75 
 
 a heart that cries "Abba Father," "my clear Father." It is becoming heir of God, inheritor 
 of his nature, and therein joint heir with the Lord Jesus Christ. It is coming into the 
 joyful assurance that all things work together for good to them that love God, that sorrow- 
 is his best and supremest gift, the thorn crown, the Divine coronation. It is Goil in the 
 present, and hope for the future ; the banishment of remorse for the past, of self-condemna- 
 tion in tlie present, of fear for the future. It is the experience that cries exultingly, " I 
 am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor 
 things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing 
 shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.'" 
 
 ' Roiuaiis vi : -'-4, IS ; viii : 1, 14-17, L'S, 'M. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 IN these pages I have endeavored to set forth the essential characteristics of Paul, and 
 the essential elements in his teaching, in a wholly uncontroversial way. I have tried 
 to forget that other writers have preceded me, and to set forth in order the salient features 
 of his personality, and especially of his theology, without controverting or even contrasting 
 this interpretation with that of other students of his life and teachings. fFor the views 
 here presented I claim indeed no originality. Because they are somewhat novel I have 
 hesitated to put them forth. I have done so at first hesitatingly and in fragmentary ways 
 and on diverse occasions. The response from Christian experience has confirmed them. 
 They are, I am persuaded, only the inadequate interpretation of the uninterpreted thought 
 of many a spiritual student of these Epistles. If they are inconsistent with the scholastic 
 Mishna, which in our day as well as in Christ's time, has put a veil on the Scriptures — on 
 the words of Paul and Christ as well as of Moses — they are confirmed by the inward witness 
 of many a Christian disciple who needs not to be taught that justification is more than a 
 forensic term, propitiation more than a Hebrew sacrifice, forgiveness more than a release 
 from penalty, and salvation inore than a deliverance from the fear of hell. Not for pur- 
 poses of controversy or criticism, but only for greater clearness, in restating the conclusions 
 to which I have endeavored to conduct the reader by the same path by which I have first 
 myself traveled, I put those conclusions here in contrast with those which scholastic 
 theology has reached in its interpretation of the Pauline Epistles. 
 
 According to scholastic theologj", justice and mercy are incongruous and inconsistent 
 attributes, and make upon God inconsistent and antagonistic claims." Justice requires that 
 the sinner should receive in punishment the full equivalent of his misdeeds. Mercy can 
 not bear to see him suffer, and pleads to have him let off. Divine wisdom, thus perplexed 
 between the two, devises a "plan of salvation." According to this plan, the Son of God 
 descends to the earth, becomes the sinner's substitute, and suffers the punishment of liis 
 sin. The wrath of God is appeased ; the justice of God is satisfied ; the requirements of 
 God's moral law are met ; a proper moral impression is produced upon the world ; and it 
 thus becomes both feasible and safe to remit the threatened penalty. In some schemes of 
 theology one of these aspects is made more prominent ; in other schemes another aspect is 
 made more prominent ; but in all there is an agreement that something needed to be done 
 before a just God could justify sinful man. That being done, he who believes that Christ 
 is his substitute and accepts him as such, is put in Christ's place ; Christ is put in his place. 
 His sins are imputed to Christ and punished on the cross ; Clirist's righteousness is im- 
 puted to him and rewarded in heavenly glory. Justice is satisfied, and yet Mercy has her 
 own way. As for those who refuse to accept the substitute which has been provided for 
 them, Mercy ceases to entertain any compassion for them, or to have any desire to see their 
 eternal sufferings mitigated. As for those who never have heard of the " plan of salvation," 
 
 ' See this idea, which is a legacy of the Middle Ages, beautifully illustrated and expressed in the Miracle 
 Play in Longfellow's Golden Legend. 
 
* CONCLUSION. 77 
 
 there is not an entire agreement ; a considerable number of theologians hold that they are 
 tried and condemned by Justice without any intercession on their behalf by Mercy ; while 
 a growing minority hold that in some way that "plan" will be offered to them before Mercy 
 finally abandons all attempts to rescue them from Justice. 
 
 Certain great truths seem to me to underlie this artificial and mechanical system. But 
 they lie very far under it. It does not interpret, but obscures ; it does not illustrate, but 
 darkens those truths. As I understand Paul, Justice and Mercy are not inconsistent attri- 1 
 butes, and make no antagonistic demands ; they are but different aspects of the eternal,! 
 Divine Love. Mercy is love looking at the individual ; Justice is love looking at the uni- 
 verse. God's righteousness is ncjt an obstacle to the exercise of forgiveness which must be 
 gotten out of the way Ijy a " plan of salvation " ; nor is the death of Christ a dramatic 
 episode entered into astutely for a purpose. The Gospel reveals not a plan, nor a scheme, 
 but a Divine Person. It discloses in the life and character of Jesus Christ the righteousness, 
 that is the true character, of God. It is the very nature of God's righteousness to go out 
 from itself, as heat and light go out from the sun, to give righteousness to those who do not 
 possess it. This outgoing of righteousness for the suffering and the sinful is itself a suffer- 
 ing ; ever and always a suffering. Suffering is the great sin-cleanser ; suffering is the great 
 reconciler. Sympathy, i. e. suffering with another, is the first condition of becoming at one 
 with him ; becoming at one with him is the first condition of exercising any moral or 
 spiritual power over him. Thus the Messiah is revealed as a suffering Messiah through 
 whom God descends by sympathy to man, through whom man, made sharer of his suffering, 
 is lifted up by symjjathy to God. This sympathy between the outpouring, affluent heart 
 of God, and the empty, hungry heart of man, is, on God's part, mercy ; on man's part, faith. 
 Faith is the turning of the flower to the sun to receive the light ; it is the opening ear of 
 Lazarus to receive the life that trembles in the words, " Come forth." It is not a belief 
 about God or his Christ ; it is the receiving of God in his Christ. He who thus through a 
 .suffering Messiah receives a sympathetic, outpouring, life-giving God, is rightened through 
 this faith. He is brought into loyal, filial relations to his Father. He receives, by the 
 direct play (jf the higher Divine nature on his own, a new and Divine life, wliich translates 
 and transforms him, raises him from the dead, emancipates him from his old-time bondage 
 unto sin, delivers him from all fear of future penalty, redeems him from all present destruc- 
 tion, and unites him in a living relation of' love and sympathy to his God. God's gift of 
 himself to us the cau.se, our acceptance of God the means, and God thus given and accepted 
 in us the hope of glory the end ; — this I understand to be Paul's doctrine of salvation from 
 sin, unto righteousness, through faith in Christ Jesus, by God. 
 
EPISTLE 
 
 OF 
 
 PAUL THE APOSTLE 
 
 TO THE 
 
 ROMANS 
 
 WITH 
 
 NOTES ANU COMMENTS. 
 
THE EPISTLE OF PAUL THE APOSTLE TO THE ROMANS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 There is no opportunity, and no occasion to 
 eaj' anything in this brief introduction to the 
 Epistle to the Romans that has not been said by 
 previous students of the Epistle. This introduc- 
 tion is therefore simply a compend of the results 
 of previous scholarship as found in the works of 
 such scholars as Meyer, Alford, Godet, Cony- 
 beare and Howson, and Farrar ; often stated in 
 their own words. 
 
 By whom written. The Epistle is univer- 
 sally believed to be by the Apostle Paul. Nei- 
 ther the Judaizing sects of old, nor the skeptical 
 critics of modem Germany have doubted its 
 Pauline authorship. It is equally certain that it 
 was written originally in the Greek language, 
 and by dictation to an amanuensis. Some have 
 doubted the genuineness of particular passages, 
 as chapters xii-xv ; but these suggestions have 
 never found favor, even among rationalizing 
 critics. The genuineness and integrity of the 
 Epistle may be regarded as practically unques- 
 tioned, and as wholly indisputable. 
 
 Time and place of composition. The 
 Apostle was about to set out for Jerusalem with 
 a contribution from the churches of Macedonia 
 and Achaia (acu 20 : 22, etc). From this fact, coupled 
 with references to the same intended journey 
 in his Epistle to the Corinthians (1 cor. is : 1), the 
 Epistle to the Romans is believed by critics to 
 have been written during Paul's stay in Corinth, 
 and just previous to his departure for Jerusalem. 
 This is the conclusion of Alford, Meyer, Godet, 
 Farrar, and the critics generally. This makes 
 the date of the Epistle a.d. 58, or 59, and puts 
 its composition — the important fact in its spirit- 
 ual interpretation — after Paul had had long ex- 
 perience ill dealing with the pagan mind, and the 
 doctrinal and spiritual diflSculties involved in 
 churches in which the superciliousness of the 
 pagan and the narrowness of the Jew were both 
 found. 
 
 Object of the Epistle. The general object 
 of the Epistle can not be better stated than in the 
 words of Meyer : "Paul wished to lay before the 
 Romans in writing, for their Christian edification, 
 his evangilie doctrine— the doctrine of the sole 
 way of salvation given in Christ — viewed in its 
 full specific character as the superseding of Ju- 
 daism, in such a way as the necessities and cir- 
 cumstances of the church demanded, and as he 
 would have preached it among them had he been 
 present in person." More specifically it was his ; 
 
 aim to show to both Jew and Gentile the univer- 
 saUty of the Christian religion, its adaptation to 
 the needs of the human race, both Jew and Gen- 
 tile, and the foundation for it in the constitution 
 and history of the human race. To this we may 
 still further add, that, writing it to Rome, the 
 cajiital of the world, he was naturally led to state 
 more fully than in any other of his epistles the 
 general doctrines of the Gospel, rather than those 
 doctrines in any one aspect, or as adapted to any 
 specific need. The Epistle to the Romans is 
 therefore, of all Paul's Epistles, the one which 
 most nearly approaches a general treatise on 
 Christian theology. Still, it is not that, but a 
 letter to a specific church from which tlie per- 
 sonal element is never lacking. 
 
 Rome in the time of Paul. The city of 
 Rome in the time of Paul had outgrown its seven 
 hills and the ancient walls of Servius Tullius that 
 surrounded them, and had issued from the gates 
 to establish itself on the adjacent hills and un- 
 dulating table-lands. To the approaching trav- 
 eler it presented a picture of unimposing hills 
 covered with a large irregular mass of buildings. 
 The architectural wonders that attract the trav- 
 eler of the present day were then unconceived. 
 The Pantheon was indeed built, but the Coliseum 
 was not conceived till later, in the reign of Titus. 
 The streets of the city were, for the most part, 
 winding and narrow, and flanked on either side 
 by densely-crowded tenement-houses of an enor- 
 mous height. Frequent accidents resulted from 
 the loftiness of these buildini,^s, constructed often 
 in haste and carelessness, and both Augustus and 
 Nero decreed that private buildings within the 
 walls of Rome should not exceed the height of 
 seventy feet. Into these dark and smoky lodg- 
 ings, for which they paid immoderate prices, the 
 poorer classes dwelt, and the different floors and 
 apartments were not infrequently shared among 
 several families. From the capacity of these 
 houses, allowing twenty-five persons to each 
 house, the population of Rome at this time is 
 estimated to have been about one million two 
 hundred thousand ; one half of whicli, in all 
 probabUity, were slaves. 
 
 In glaring contrast to the squalor and indigence 
 of these quarters were the public squares of the 
 city, generous and ample spaces set apart for as- 
 semblies of the people, martial exercises and 
 irames. The Campus Martius was the principal 
 of these, dedicated to Mars, the God of War. It 
 
82 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 was surrounded by imposing structures and 
 adorned with statues and arches. The Forum 
 also was a grand open space, eight hundred feet 
 wide, that lay between the Capitoline and Pala- 
 tine Hills, on which were erected respectively the 
 Roman Capitol, or Citadel, and the Imperial 
 Palace. The Forum was flanked on every side 
 with porticoes, rostra, or platforms for public 
 
 speakers, shops, and 
 other buildings, all of 
 imposing appearance, 
 costly workmanship, 
 and rich decoration. 
 Overlooking the Fo- 
 rum, from which as- 
 cended a flight of one 
 hundred steps, rose the 
 massive and stately Cit- 
 adel from the crest of 
 the Capitoline HiU. It 
 was the largest and 
 grandest building of 
 the city. It was square 
 in form, with sides two hundred feet in length, and inclosed three 
 structures, temples to Jupiter, Minerva, and Juno. Its gates were 
 of brass, and it was adorned with costly gildings, whence it was 
 termed "golden," and "glittering." The splendor of the public 
 squares, as well as the poverty of the meaner quarters, must have 
 been well known to Paul. "The Prsetorium," of which he speaks, 
 may have been either a barrack attached to the imperial palace on 
 the Palatine Hill, or it may have been the great camp of the Prae- 
 torian Guards, which lay to the north-east of the city, outside the 
 walls. Of other architectural features of the city, connected with 
 the life of Paul, may be mentioned the gardens of Nero, on the Vati- 
 can Hill, not far distant from the modern St. Peter's, where the 
 Christians suffered martyrdom by various ingenious schemes of 
 cruelty. Also the Catacombs, which were subterranean galleries, 
 about ten feet high and six feet wide, extending for miles, and 
 which were used by the persecuted Christians subsequently as 
 places of refuge, worship, and bu rial. 
 
 Such were some of the outward aspects of the city as it appeared 
 to Paul. Its social organization he found to be a structure in 
 which were put, side by side, "the ostentatious luxury of inex- 
 haustible wealth and 
 the painful squalor of 
 chronic pauperism; " a 
 system of contrasting 
 elements, of which the 
 splendor of its public 
 edifices and the mean- 
 ness of its lower haunts 
 were but an accompa- 
 nying and natural out- 
 growth. Rich and poor, 
 patrician and plebs, 
 were alike given up to 
 universal vice, and the 
 number was small in- 
 deed that retained the 
 simplicity and purity 
 
 ROME LN THE TIME OF AUGUSTUS C^SAR. 
 
 of a virtuous life. The life of her people was 
 corrupted by the pollutions of the stage, and 
 hardened by the cnielties of the amphitheater ; 
 swarming with parasites, impostors, poisoners, 
 and the vilest slaves ; without any serious 
 religion ; without any public education ; ter- 
 rorized by insolent soldiers and pauperized 
 mobs, the world's capital presented at this 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 83 
 
 period a picture unparalleled for shame and 
 misery in the annals vi the world. From the 
 time when I'ompey conquered Jerusalem, Oob.o., 
 and made Palestine a Roman Province, the Jews, 
 in gnidually increasing numbers, had found tlieir 
 way to this city, until, in the time of Nero, they 
 counted as a large factor in the population of 
 tiie city. This Jewish community, to the num- 
 ber of 8,000, occupied a large district across the 
 Tiber, in the neighborhood of the wharves and 
 shipping, a location 
 that suited remark- 
 ably the retail trade 
 which served for the 
 most i)art as their 
 chief employment. 
 From their earliest 
 appearance the Jews 
 were to the Romans 
 an object of scorn- 
 ful abhorrence, and 
 they became the 
 mark for the satires 
 and malicious ^vit of 
 the writers of their 
 time. Whatever 
 their condition, they 
 were equally de- 
 tested by the mass 
 of the population. 
 If tlicy were false to 
 their religion, they 
 were flouted as ren- 
 egades ; if they were 
 true to it, their Sab- 
 bath*, and their cir- 
 c u m c i s i o n, their 
 hatred of pork, their 
 form of oath, their 
 lamp-lightings, and 
 their solemn festi- 
 vals were hehl up to angry ridicule, as signs of 
 the most abject superstition. Thus, in Rome, 
 dimply to be a Jew, was to be detested. When 
 to tills was added the deeper taint of being a 
 Christian — that is. to worship in blind, supersti- 
 tious, and incredible folly " a crucified malefac- 
 tor" — detestation grew into hatred, which in 
 turn developed into expulsion, and ultimately 
 into persecution. 
 
 The Church at Rome. The origin of the 
 Congregation at Rome is variously attributed to 
 Petir, to Jews who returned to Rome after 
 having been converted on tin; Day of Pentecost 
 at Jerusalem, and (by fictitious tradition) which 
 says that the first preaching in Rome occurred 
 during the life of Christ. This last statement is 
 universally rejected, and need not, therefore, be 
 considered here. The claim that the Apostle 
 Peter was the founder of the Church is main- 
 
 tained by the Roman Catholics, although tho 
 burden of evidence against the claim is very 
 great, and is briefly summed up in the following 
 facts : That in this Epistle to the Romans, and in 
 his letters from Rome, Paul nowhere mentions 
 the name of Peter; he states that his aim was 
 never to build on another man's foundation ; he 
 speaks of the Romans as especially falling to his 
 share, as the Apostle of the Gentiles (ch. i : 13), with 
 a probable reference to the partition of the tteld 
 
 ROMAN SOLDIERS. 
 
 of labor between himself and Peter, mentioned 
 in Gal. 2 : 7-9. Moreover, his wish to impart 
 some spiritual gift to them, " that they might be 
 established " (ch. 1 : 11), implies that they had not 
 yet been visited by an ajiostle. Again, there is 
 no mention of Peter's labors in Rome made in 
 the Acts, and while on the one side there is this 
 array of evidence to disprove the claim, on the 
 other side there is only a tradition which is first 
 found in the forged Clementines, a work written 
 late in the second century. The third view, 
 which ;i scribes the origin of the Church at Rome to 
 the agency of converted Jews and proselytes from 
 Jerusalem, is, on the whole, the most plausible of 
 the three, and is the one most generally accepted 
 among Protestant commentators. It was natural 
 that the Jewish Christians on returning to Rome, 
 should find a more congenial atmosphere among 
 the (ientile Christians of the city, than in the 
 
84 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 society of their own unconverted countrymen. 
 This intermingling of Jew and Gentile gave its 
 peculiar character to the Church. 
 
 Thei-e has been much, but, on the whole, fruit- 
 less discussion and surmise as to which element 
 predominated. The evidence on both sides is 
 about equal ; for, whereas on the one hand the 
 presence in Rome of a large number of Jews, many 
 of them converts to Christianity, taken in consid- 
 eration with the circumstantial proof of the 
 Epistle itself, would tend to show a predominating 
 Jewish element ; on the other hand, it is fully as 
 proljable that the great majority of the congrega- 
 tion was composed of believers of Gentile origin. 
 Rome was the center of the Gentile world, and 
 maintained constant intercourse with those 
 places where Paul's success among the Gentiles 
 had been most marked, e. g., Antioch, Ephesus, 
 Corinth. Paul himself avows his mission as the 
 Apostle of the Gentiles (ch. 15 : 15, le), and his desire 
 to work spiritual good among them as among 
 other Gentiles (ch. 1 : 13) ; and there are many 
 other passages that point to a Gentile audience. 
 We are not to believe, however, that the Gentile 
 portion of the church was composed entirely of 
 native Romans ; for, from the fact that all the 
 literature of the early Roman church was written 
 in the Greek tongue, and that the names of the 
 Bishops of Rome during the first two centuries 
 
 are, but with few exceptions, Greek ; and fur- 
 thermore from the fact that by far the larger 
 proportion of names in the Epistle are Greek 
 and from the light which history and literature 
 throws on the dominating and irresistible influ- 
 ence of the Greek population iu Rome, — from all 
 this we are safe in concluding that the Gentile 
 element of the church was drawn chiefly from 
 Greek and not Roman proselytes. Indeed, strange 
 as the paradox appears, nothing is more certain 
 than that the Church of Rome was at this time a 
 Greek and not a Latin church. As to the social 
 rank and station of the members of this church, 
 there is no better inference than the one in the 
 widely -quoted paragraph of Bishop Lightfoot : 
 " Among the less wealthy merchants and trades- 
 men, among the petty officers of the army, among 
 the slaves and f reedmen of the imperial palace — 
 whether Jews or Greeks — the Gospel would first 
 find a firm footing." To this last class allusion 
 is made in Phil. 4 : 23 : " They that are of Caesar's 
 household." From thence it would gradually 
 work upwards and downwards ; but we may be 
 sure that in respect of rank the Church of Rome, 
 when Paul wrote to it his Epistle, was no excep- 
 tion to the general rule that "not many wise, not 
 many mighty, not many noble" were called 
 
 (1 Cor. 1 :26). 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF SIN. 
 [new version.] 
 
 PAtn>, a 'eervantof Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, 
 which he promised afore -by his prophets in the holy scriptures, concerning his Son, who was 
 born of the seed of David according to the flesh, who was ^declared to be the Sou of God *with 
 power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection of the dead ; even Jesus Christ 
 our Lord, through whom we received grace and apostleship, unto obedience 'of faith among all 
 the nations, for his name's sake : among whom are ye also, called to be Jesus Christ's : to all 
 that are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints : Grace to you and peace from God our 
 Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, "that your faith is proclaimed 
 throughout the whole world. For God is my witness, whom I serve in my spirit in the gospel 
 of his Son, how unceasingly I make mention of you, always in my prayers making request, if 
 by any means now at length I may be prospered 'by the will of God to come unto you. For I 
 long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be eslab 
 lishcd ; that is, that I with you may be comforted in you, each of us by the other's faith, both 
 yours and mine. And I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to 
 come unto you (and was hindered hitherto), that I might have some fruit in you also, even as in 
 the rest of the Gtentiles. I am debtor both to Greeks and to Barbarians, both to the wise and to 
 the foolish. So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach tlie gospel to you also that are in 
 Rome. For I am not ashametl 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. For therein is revealed a righteous- 
 ness of God "by faith * unto faith : as it is written. But the righteous shall live 'by faith.* 
 
 For "the wTath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness 
 of men. who ' "hold downt the troth in unrighteousness ; because that which may be known of 
 God is manifest in them ; for God manifested it unto them. For the invisible things of him 
 since the creation of the world are clearly seen. Being perceived through the things that are 
 made, ewri his everlasting power and divinity ; "that they may be without excuse : because 
 that, knowing God, they glorified him not as God, neither gave thanks ; but became vain in 
 their reasonings, and their senseless heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, 
 they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image 
 of corniptible man, and of birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. 
 
 Wherefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts unto uncleanness, that their bodies 
 should be dishonored among themselves : for that they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, 
 and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed ^^for ever. 
 Amen. 
 
 For this cause God gave them up unto ' ^vile passions : for their women changed the natnral 
 use into 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 working unseemliness, and 
 receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was due. 
 
 And even as they ' 'refused tf) have God in their knowledge, God gave them up unto a rep- 
 robate mind, to do those things which are not fitting ; being filled with all unrighteousness, 
 wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness ; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity ; 
 whisperers, backbiters, ' 'hateful to God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil things, 
 disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, 
 unmerciful ; who. knowing the ordinance of God, that they which practise such things are 
 worthy of death, not only do the same, but also consent with them that practise them. 
 
 1 Gr. handttrvant, 
 
 2 Or, through. 
 
 3 Gr. determined, 
 
 4 Or, in. 
 
 5 Or, to the faith. 
 
 6 Or, hecauee. 
 
 8 Gr. from. 
 
 » For " hy faith" 
 read "from faith' 
 and omit the mar- 
 gin. — Am. Com. 
 
 9 Or, a wrath. 
 lOOr, hold the truth. 
 t For " hold down " 
 
 read '* hinder." — 
 Am. Com. 
 
 12 Gr. unto theagei. 
 
 14 Gr. did not ap» 
 prove. 
 
 15 Or, haters of Ood. 
 
 It is a great mistake to regard the dark picture uf character and life which Paul pre- 
 sents in this chapter as his estimate of human nature. We have only to look about us to 
 know that it would not be true as an estimate of human nature ; we have only to read 
 history to know that it would not be true as an impartial estimate of human life and char- 
 
86 EOMANS. [Ch. I. 
 
 acter, even in lands without the Gospel. It is Paul's picture of the corrupt condition of 
 the Roman world in the most corrupt period of Roman history, and as such its truth is 
 amply justified by contemporary records ; by the history of Tacitus and the satires of 
 Juvenal. The reader will find in the introduction of this volume some of the evidences 
 of this justification, culled from the pages of pagan writers and of those who have since 
 interj^reted them and portrayed the life which they depicted. 
 
 As this chapter is not a portraiture of human nature, so neither is it the apostle's object 
 to prove the j-otal depravity of humanity as a foundation for the Gospel. If we desire to 
 know the object of a writer in any given passage, we naturally look to the conclusion to 
 which it conducts him and his readers. That conclusion in this case is found in chap. 3, 
 ver. 20 : " Therefore, by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be rightened in God's 
 sight." His object, as more fully explained in the Introduction, is to show that it is not by 
 obedience to an external edict that human society or the individual can be regenerated in 
 character ; and he proves his proposition by pointing to the condition of Roman society, 
 where law and authority were absolute, following this by showing in the third chapter that 
 law proved equally inefiicacious to redeem society or the individual, even when it was 
 divinely revealed, and maintained by the sanctions of divine punishments and rewards. 
 
 But although this chapter can not properly be regarded as affording Paul's estimate of 
 human nature, it does indicate what is cardinal in Paul's teaching : his belief in the degen- 
 eracy of the human race, and its total inability for self-development or self-elevation. The 
 condition of pagan society in the time of Paul was not one to which it had gradiially come 
 by a process of evolution from an inferior stage. The theory of modern agnostic philos- 
 ophy, that the first conception of the spiritual world was of departed spirits, or the person- 
 ification of forces mysterious and inexplicable, and that gradually humanity has risen to a 
 purer imagination, if not a truer thought, concerning the invisible, can not be reconciled 
 with Paul's interpretation of human history here, nor with the philosophy which underlies 
 his teaching elsewhere. On the contrary, he teaches emphatically that man possessed a 
 knowledge of God, not indeed perfect and complete, but a knowledge of his everlasting 
 power and divinity, aS"orded to the thoughtful mind by a consideration of the things which 
 are made ; that this knowledge of God was exchanged for a lower and more sensuous one, 
 in a process of steadily-increasing moral and intellectual degradation, each intensifying and 
 promoting the other, until at last the natural consummation was reached in natures given 
 over to a reprobate mind and lives filled with all uncleanness and wickedness. Paul does 
 not here indeed directly inculcate any doctrine of the historical fall of man ; and, as we 
 shall have occasion hereafter to see, he lays far less emphasis on this doctrine than scholastic 
 theology has done. But that the corruption of humanity is a product of its degradation 
 and decay ; that it is a stage of a downward and not of a steadily upward road ; that by 
 the processes of growth a divine manhood never can be reached ; that, in Paul's language 
 elsewhere, by nature — that is, by purely natural processes, without the intervention of a 
 higher nature — man is a " child of wrath," and his life and character a product of passion : — 
 this underlies Paul's entire philosophy of nature and of grace and can not be eliminated 
 from it without requiring that his whole philosophy should be recast in a different mold. 
 We start in the very introduction of this Epistle with the declaration that by no law en- 
 forced from without can human nature be saved from self-degradation and self-destruction. 
 And this starting-point is made the preparation for the second aflirmation in his teaching, 
 that the power which thus saved humanity from itself and lifted it up into a likeness of 
 God, and endowed it with a divine life, is a power whioh descends from above — the power 
 of God unto salvation. 
 
Ch. I.] » ROMANS. 87 
 
 While, then, it is true that in this chapter Paul traces the development of sin as it is 
 illustrated in a particular chapter of human history, and affords a picture not of human 
 nature, nor even of pagan nature, but of Roman nature as it manifested itself in the first 
 century, that development is by no means peculiar to Rome, nor even to paganism, but 
 belongs to humanity. The chapter is not merely a picture of a particularly dark phase of 
 human nature — though it is that — it is also a dramatic portrayal, from history, of the 
 evolution of sin. Thus, this chapter from verse 18 to the close may be regarded as an 
 historical parallel to the first half of the parable of the Prodigal Son, or as an elaboration 
 of the declaration of James 1 : 13-15. Every man is tempted when he is drawn away of 
 his own lust and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin ; and sin 
 when it is finished bringeth forth death. Or, as a philosophical representation of the truth 
 illustrated in the third chapter of Genesis, where the first step away from righteousness is 
 a step of disobedience to God. The heathen, it is true, have no knowledge of God, that is, 
 no acquaintance with him. But there has been made to them by Nature the revelation of 
 his everlasting Power and Godhead ; they know themselves to be in the presence of an 
 " Infinite and Eternal Energy from which all things proceed." They are assured of enough 
 to make it clear to them that they are under a moral order, that there is a Creator and King 
 of the universe. Nature itself bids them to seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after 
 him and find him ; for their own poets bear witness that he is not far from every one of 
 us ; that in him we live and move and have our being ; that we are his offspring.' Some 
 heathen have done this. Not all men have held back the truth in unrighteousness ; and 
 those who have thus followed the truth and have sought the Lord if haply they may feel 
 after him, do not come under the apostle's condemnation here, any more than those devout 
 Jews, who saw in the symbols of the ceremonial law a shadow of good things to come, and 
 lived in God and unto God, come under the sweeping condemnation of the Jews in the 
 third chapter. Both, however, are saved, forgiven, rightened, not by deeds of the law, but 
 by faitli.^ But the great mass of mankind have not glorified God ; they have not received 
 with thankfulness those things in their life which are manifestly gifts of a higher power. 
 They have glorified themselves, not the " Infinite and Eternal Energy from which all things 
 proceed." They have devoted themselves to idle discussions about abstract problems, not 
 to a real search after God, or truth, or duty. The result has been always the same. First, 
 a steadily lowered conception of God. The refusal to have God in their knowledge lias 
 always been followed by false gods taking the place of the true. Atheism is the parent (jf 
 idolatry. The periods of scoffing atheism have been also the periods of sensuous idolatry. 
 The two have acted and reacted in producing and strengthening each other. Paul's illus- 
 tration of this is taken from the history of Rome ; other illustrations are nearer our own 
 time. In modem history the superstition of the Papal church in the sixteenth century 
 produced the infidelity which Martin Luther found even among the priests of Rome ; and 
 the materialism of the Encyclopedists in France led directly to the deification of humanity, 
 the erection of the Temple of Reason by Robespierre, and the short-lived religion of a 
 gotlle.ss philosophy, ending in social and political anarchy. In the French revolution history 
 writes a commentary on the text. " They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and wor- 
 .shiped and served the creature rather than the Creator." Atheism and idolatry thus declared 
 by the apostle and proved by history to be twins, — bom of the same mother, the love of 
 Darkness rather than Light, the refusal to worship and glorify the Everlasting Power and 
 Godhead borne witness to by Nature, — are themselves the parents of a constantly increasing 
 
 » Act3 17 : 27, 28. a See ch. 2 ; 6, 7. 
 
88 ROMANS. [Ch. I. 
 
 progeny of vice and immoralities, ending in absolute lawlessness and anarchy. They that 
 have abandoned God are given over by him to their own will and way, and this will and 
 way work out their evil fruits in every form of wretchedness and sin, ending in their own 
 physical degeneracy and deformity, and the destruction of that body whose appetites and 
 passions they chose to obey rather than the voice of God. This is in outline the universal 
 history of the development of sin, whether in the community or the individual. First, a 
 refusal to glorify God and receive as gifts with thankful hearts from him, what evidently 
 proceeds from a power above ourselves ; then, in lieu of an honest search after him and his 
 truth, fruitless debates ; then atheism or no God ; then idolatry or false gods ; then the 
 long chain of immoralities and vices, destructive of society, of the family, of government, 
 of the individual, both soul and body, which follows necessarily from a loss of the center 
 and source of Life and Light. Every individual who chooses a godless life does not run 
 this course ; but every such individual has begun in this course. The end of godlessness is 
 always, here or hereafter, lawlessness ; for God is the only Lawgiver. Separation from God 
 ends in individualism and selfishness. For love of God is substituted self-love ; for worship 
 of God, self-conceit ; for obedience to God, self-will. And thus sin is also the penalty. 
 Separation from God, which is the first step in wrong-doing, is also its final and terrible 
 result. Selfishness, which is the first step in wrong-doing, is also its dreadful end. God 
 gives the godless man over, not to some external tormentor, but to his own lusts, his dis- 
 honorable passions, his reprobate mind. Ephraim is allowed to be joined to his idols ; they 
 that loved darkness better than light are cast into outer darkness ; Judas Iscariot goes to 
 his own place ; the sentence at the last is. He that is unjust, let him be unjust still ; and he 
 that is filthy, let him be filthy still. Abandonment of God, the beginning ; abandoned by 
 God, the end ; cleaving to self, the beginning ; cleaving to self, the end — giving one's self 
 to sin, the beginning ; given over to sin, the end. 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 
 
 [king .IAMK8' VERSION.] 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 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 ; 
 
 a Act« 27 : 23 .... b Acta 9:16; 1 Cor. 1 : 1 
 
 Ch. 1. INTUODUCTION. THE DEVELOl'MKNT OF SIN. 
 The Messiah : the Son of Man, the Son of God. 
 —Intercessory prater illustrated. — Spiritual 
 FRIENDSHIP illustrated.— In spiritual things the 
 giver is a receiver. — Man's debt to humanity. — 
 The power of the Gospel ; the nature or the 
 Gospel ; the object of the Gospel. — The secret 
 OF truth's failure to achieve its mission : it is 
 
 HELD BACK IN UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. — ThE EXTENT AND 
 limitations OF NATURAL RELIGION. — ThE HISTORY OF 
 
 humanity's downfall.— The punishment of sin : 
 being given over to sin.— to what godlessness 
 
 LEADS. — IrRELIGION THE SOURCE OF IMMORALITY. 
 
 The apostle opens his epistle, as is his custom, 
 with a salutation (vers. i-v). He then gives expres- 
 sion to his warm, personal sympathy for the 
 infant church at Rome, with words of hearty 
 commendation of their faith; thus bringing hira- 
 eelf into spiritual contact and fellowship with 
 them (vers. 8-15). This is characteristic of Paul's 
 method, the result, not of art, but of his sympa- 
 thetic nature, and his charity which leads him, 
 always, to look on the best side of those to whom 
 he is addressing himself, even if he afterward 
 goes on to point out, with great vigor and plain- 
 ness, their faults (comp. l Cor. l : l-9; Col. 1 : 1-6 ; 1 Thess. 
 1:1-8; and especially Acts 17 : 11, note). In VerseS 10, 
 
 17, the apostle announces the theme of which 
 the rest of the epistle is a development, and then 
 proceeds to show in the remainder of this chap- 
 ter, and by an appeal to facts within the personal 
 knowledge of his readers, the failure of law as a 
 means for the regeneration or even preservation 
 of society. 
 
 1-4. Paul. On the significance of this name, 
 and the reasons which arc supposed to have led 
 the apostle to take it, see note on Acts 13 : 9. — 
 A servant of Jesus Chri.st. The proper sig- 
 nificance of the original is, dave. This figure is 
 frequently used in the New Testament by the 
 sacred writers as a designation of themselves. 
 
 (l Cor. 7 : 22 ; G»J. 1 : 10 ; Ephes. 6:6; Col. 4:12; Titus 1:1; 
 
 James 1:1; jude 1 ; Rev. 1 : 1.) The Roman master had 
 absolute power over his slave, including the 
 power of life and death ; for the exercise of this 
 power he was not accountable, either to the slave 
 
 or to the community. The habitual use of such 
 a figure by one naturally possessing such pride 
 of independence as that of the Apostle Paul, who 
 indignantly resented all idea of ecclesiastical 
 supremacy, affords one of the most striking indi- 
 cations of the depth and enthusiasm of his devo- 
 tion, and the completeness of his allegiance to his 
 Divine Master. He accounted himself, not merely 
 as one who served Christ and obeyed him, but as 
 one who was absolutely owned by Christ. See, 
 as illustrating this idea, 1 Cor. 6 : 20 ; 7 : 211 — 
 Called to be an apostle. Not both called, 
 and an apostle ; though this significance has 
 sometimes been given to the passage ; nor chosen 
 above the other apostles ; but called in common 
 with the others, who had been especially selected 
 by Christ for the apostolic office (see Matt. io:i-i). 
 The reference here is to such special designations 
 of Paul by Christ to the apostolic ministry as are 
 found in Acts 9 : 1.5 ; 13 : 2 ; 22 : 17-21 . The apos- 
 tles were eye and ear witnesses of the facts to 
 which they testified ; especially of the fact of 
 
 Christ's resurrection (see John 16:27; Acts 1:21, 22; 
 
 1 Cor. 9:1; 15:8). Paul, against those who ques- 
 tioned his right to act as an aj)()stle, insisted that 
 he had been called to this office as truly as the 
 twelve by the command of God (cai. i : 15-19), be- 
 cause he had himself seen the Lord since his res- 
 urrection (1 Cor. 9:1; 2 Cor. 12:12). — Separated 
 unto the jjlad tidings of God. That is, the 
 glad tidings which come from God, and which 
 relate to God. Paul regarded himself as set 
 apart to a faith in the Gospel from his birth, by 
 God's gracious decree (oai. i : is). But he was also 
 especially set apart to preach this Gospel unto 
 others (Acts 13 : 2). Both facts may have been in 
 the apostle's mind in this sentence ; at all events 
 both facts are included in his experience. — 
 Which he promised afore by his prophets 
 ill holy writings. Or in the holy writings; 
 that is the O. T. Scriptures. " With words like 
 Scripture, God, Spirit, the article is omitted or 
 retained, without affecting the sense. Like 
 proper names, they are suflQciently defined by 
 themselves, as we say in English indifferently. 
 
«0 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 [Ch. I. 
 
 4 And declared ' to be the Son of God with power, 
 according to the Spirit f of holiness, by the resurrection 
 from the dead : 
 
 5 By whom we have received grace and apostleship, 
 for obedience e 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. 
 
 1 Acta 13:33,34; Rev. 1 : I8....f Heb. 9 : I4....g ch. 16: 26; AcU 6:7....h 1 Cor. 1 : 2; 1 Thesa. 4 : ' 
 
 1 Cor. 1 : 3, elc; 2 Pet. 1 : 2. 
 
 ' Scripture ' or ' the Scripture.' " — (Jowett.) The 
 Gospel is not a novelty, it is the fulfillment, not 
 only of God's design from the foundation of the 
 world, but of God's promises from the beginning 
 of Revelation. So is it uniformly treated by the 
 New Testament writers ; see, for example, Luke 
 24 : 26, 27 ; Acts 17 : 2, 3 ; 18 : 28.— Concerning 
 his Son. The words Jesus Christ our Lord are 
 omitted by the Revisers, and are wanting in the 
 best manuscripts. They belong later in the sen- 
 tence (see below). — M'ho was made from the 
 seed of David according to the flesh. This 
 language clearlj^ implies the pre-existence of the 
 Son before he became or was made by his taber- 
 nacle in the flesh, the Son of man (comp. John i : u ; 
 Hebrews 2:4-14). — Determined to be the Son of 
 God with power, according to the spirit 
 of holiness by the resurrection from the 
 dead. Not merely, as in our EngUsh translation, 
 and in both versions, declared to be the Son ; 
 here, as everywhere else in the Scripture, the Son 
 is treated as subject to the Father, and his exal- 
 tation to be due to the Father's will (john n-.i; 
 
 see PhU. 2:9; Heb. 1:4-9; 2:9; Rev. 3 : 21). It iS UOt for 
 
 US to enter into the mystery of the relation be- 
 tween Father, Son, and Holy Spirit ; but, without 
 assuming to comprehend the incomprehensible 
 divine nature, we may humbly and reverently 
 recognize the fact that the Captain of our salva- 
 tion was made perfect through suffering, and 
 that his humiliation, ci'ucifixion, resurrection, 
 and ascension, are declared by Scripture to be 
 not merely the inethods by which the glory of his 
 character was revealed to us, but also the 7yieans, 
 in the eternal decrees of God, by which he was 
 exalted in oflSce and character, so that his name is 
 above every name. Without presenting the va- 
 rious questions of this antithesis in detail, as 
 commentators have sometimes done, its general 
 significance is suflBciently clear, and corresponds 
 to that of Romans 9 : .5. Jesus of Nazareth, if 
 he be judged by the senses, appears to be simply 
 a descendant of the house of David ; if he be 
 judged by a faith that comprehends the tran- 
 scendent spirit of holiness which characterized 
 him, he is seen to be of the seed of God, and 
 this his divine character, is attested even to the 
 senses, by his resurrection from the dead. — 
 Even Jesus Christ our Lord. This is the 
 climax of Paul's antithesis. He who according 
 to the flesh seems to be simply a descendant of 
 
 David, is approved as our Messiah and our Lord 
 by his spirit of holiness and his resurrection. 
 
 5-12. Through whom we have received 
 grace and apostleship. The one is personal, 
 the other is official. Grace, Paul receives as an 
 individual ; apostleship, as a messenger and min- 
 ister to others. On the New Testament use of the 
 word grace, see note on John 1 : 17. — Unto obe- 
 dience of faith. Not obedience springing 
 from faith, but obedience rendered to faith. The 
 object of grace in the individual is, that he may 
 become obedient to the voice of faith, to the in- 
 ward voice of God speaking to his own soul ; and 
 the object of apostleship is, that he may bring 
 others into the same habit of obedience to the 
 instructions of that inward voice (comp. i cor. chap. 2). 
 This is Paul's declaration of the ultimate ob- 
 ject of the Gospel, that men may be led to give 
 heed to faith, that power in which, and through 
 which alone is there communion with God, and 
 growth in divine righteousness. — In all the 
 nations. In Paul's writings the Gospel is 
 everywhere treated as a world-wide blessing. — 
 For his name's sake. Even in this ministry 
 among the nations, it is not their sake, but Christ's 
 sake, which is the prime motive ; not an enthu- 
 siasm for humanity, but an enthusiasm for a 
 divine person (see 2 Cor. 5:i4). — Among whom 
 are ye also called of Jesus Christ. Either 
 called by Jesus Christ, or called to be Jesus 
 Christ's ; perhaps both senses may be involved. 
 — To all that are in Rome, beloved of 
 God, called to be saints. The word ren- 
 dered saints here, as everywhere else in the New 
 Testament, signifies consecrated to God's service. 
 Paul breaks off his involved sentence, and returns 
 here to complete his salutation. All between the 
 words — Jesus Christ in the first verse and the 
 beginning of the seventh verse is parenthetical ; 
 it may be omitted, and the salutation wiU still be 
 complete. — Grace to you and peace. " Grace 
 is the disposition, the subjective feeling in God 
 and Christ which the apostle -wishes to be enter- 
 tained toward and shown to his readers. Peace 
 is the actual result which is produced through 
 the manifestation of the grace." — {Meyer.) — 
 From God our Father and the Lord Jesus 
 Christ. It is a notable and significant fact, that 
 in all salutations and benedictions, the name of 
 Jesus is invariably placed by the apostle with 
 God the Father as bestowing the blessing, not 
 
C'H. I.j 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 91 
 
 8 First. I thank my God through Jesus Christ for 
 you all. that your faith > is spoken of throughout the 
 whole world. 
 
 q For God is my witness, whom "^ I serve with my 
 spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing' I 
 make mention of vou always in my prayers ; 
 
 lo Making request, if by any means now at length 
 I might have a prosperous journey by the will "> of God 
 to come unto you. 
 
 11 For I " long to see you, that I " may impart unto 
 you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be estab- 
 lished ; 
 
 12 That is, that I may be comforted together with 
 you by the mutual i" failn both of you and me. 
 
 13 Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren, 
 that oftentimes I purposed to come unto you, (but was 
 let hitherto,) that I might have some fruit among you 
 also, even as among other Gentiles. 
 
 j ch. 16 : 19 .... k Acts 27 : 23 .... 1 1 Thoss. ,■? : 10 . . . . m James 4 : 15 . . . . n ch. 16 : 23, 32 . . . . o ch. 15 : 29 .... p 2 Pet. 1 : 1. 
 
 with mail as receiving it. — I thank my God. 
 
 Paul's habit of commencing his salutations with 
 a commendation — Galatians, ITiniothj-, and Titus 
 are the only exceptions — is not merely a rhetor- 
 ical habit ; devout thankfulness is spontaneous, 
 criticism is always an afterthought. It is the 
 Hebraic habit to speak of God as my God ; it in- 
 dicates both faith in the divine personality, and 
 an experience of communion with him (see for exam. 
 
 pie Psalms 18 : 21 ; 23 : 10 ; 63 : 1 ; 68 : 20 ; 2 Chron. 6 : 40 ; Isaiah 
 25 : 1 ; 26 : 13 ; Jeremiah 5:19; 7 : 23 ; Hos. S : 23 j Micah 7 : lo). 
 
 — Through Jesus Christ. Here, as elsewhere 
 in Pauls writings, Jesus Christ is the one medi- 
 ator between God and man through whom we 
 receive all God's gifts (Eph. i : 3 ; Cui. 1 : 14-12 ; 1 Tim. 
 2:5- Heb. 1 : 2), and havc access to the father, alike 
 in our offerings of penitence and of thanksgiving. 
 — That your faith is proclaimed through- 
 out the Avorld. This is the extravagant lan- 
 guage of ardent feeling (comp. i Theas. i : s). — For 
 God is my Avitness. " There could be no 
 other witness to his practice in his secret praters 
 but God ; and as the assertion of a habit of in- 
 cessantly praying for the Roman Church whom 
 he had never seen, might seem to savor of an 
 exaggerated expression of affection, he solemnly 
 appeals to this only possible testimony," — 
 {Alford.) Observe that Paul, who prays for 
 others, seeks their prayers for himself (comp. Eph. 
 
 3: 14 with Eph. 6: 18, 19 and 2 Thess. 3 : 1 ). Paul Clearly 
 
 did not believe that the chief benefit of prayer 
 is the retroactive influence upon the mind of the 
 person praying. — Whom I serve with my 
 spirit. That is in my inmost soul, the spiritual 
 nature. Contrast the service which is according 
 to the prescribed ritual, but is not spiritual (isaiah 
 1 : 10-15). The depths of Paul's innermost life are 
 pervaded by God's service. Comp. John 4 : 24. — 
 In the glad tidings of his Son. His service 
 is not only a spiritual but also a joyous service, 
 inspired not by fear of God, but by a realization 
 of God's graciousness and gifts. So by the gra- 
 ciousness of God ho later appeals to the Romans 
 to render God a like joyous service (ch. 12: i, 2). — 
 How unceasingly I make mention of you 
 always in my prayers; making request. 
 The language is not to be construed literally ; it 
 is that of warm and ardent feeling, and therefore 
 hyperbolical ; but it certainly does express con- 
 
 tinuity in and patience of prayer, and thus illus- 
 trates Paul's exliortations to perseverance in 
 
 prayer (Eph. 6 : is : Col, 4 : 2 ; 1 Tliess. 5 : 17 ; 1 Tim. 2 : s). — 
 
 If by any means now at length I may be 
 prospered by the w^ill of God to come 
 unto you. The original language, more than 
 the English, imjjlies a purpose long entertained, 
 the fulfillment of which had been prevented by 
 circumstances which Paul was powerless to over- 
 come. His final journey to Rome was a provi- 
 dential answer to this prayer ; for he was too 
 poor to make a journey, and was carried thither 
 by the machinations of his enemies. — For I long 
 to see you. The intensity of the expression is 
 best illustrated by a reference to other passages 
 where Paul uses the same word (see 2 Cor. 5:2; 9 : i4 ; 
 
 PhU. 1:8; 2:26; 1 Thess. 3:6; 2 Tim. 1 : 4). — That I 
 
 may impart unto you some spiritual gift. 
 
 Some gift to the spirit, commg through Paul's 
 spirit from the Divine Spirit. All three thoughts 
 are necessarily included in this word spiritual as 
 Paid uses it. The motive of his longing was not 
 curiosity, nor social friendship, Imt spiritual fel- 
 lowship and edification. — That ye may be 
 established. Made steadfast in the life already 
 begun. See Eph. 6:13; and for illustration of 
 lack of steadfastness. Gal. 4 : 9-11. — That is, 
 that I with you may be comforted in you, 
 each of us by the other's faith, both yours 
 and mine. So the new version, substantially, 
 also Alford. Beware of considering comfort as 
 synonymous with consolation. The word is com- 
 posed of two Greek words signifying to call to 
 07ie\s side, and in the N. T. usage signifies the 
 ' giving of help and strength, not merely of solace 
 ' or consolation. Paul does not merely qualify liis 
 previous statement that he desires to impart 
 some spiritual gift to the Romans, lest he should 
 thus assume too much to himself. All spiritual 
 j strength giving is mutual ; he that gives receives, 
 ! and he that receives gives in receiving ; thus 
 every minister of spiritual things is spiritually 
 strengthened together with those to whom he 
 ministers. It is this profound truth of the spir- 
 itual life which Paul here recognizes. 
 
 13-15. But was hindered hitherto. 
 Comp. chap. 15 :22. \Vhether because Satan 
 hindered him (i Thes». 2:i8), or because he was 
 forbidden by the Holy Spirit (Act* i6 : 6, 7), or be- 
 
92 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 [Ch. I. 
 
 li I am debtor i both to the Greeks, and to the Bar- 
 barians ; both to the wise, and to the unwise. 
 
 15 So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the 
 gospel to you that are at Rome also. 
 
 16 For I am not ashamed ' of the gospel of Christ : 
 for it is the power "of God unto salvation, to every 
 one that believeth ;' to the Jew" first, and also to the 
 Greek. 
 
 q 1 Cor. 9:16 r Mark 8 : 38 ; 2 Tim. 1 : i 
 
 Jer. 23 : 29 ; 1 Cor. 1 : 18 t Mark 16 : 16 . 
 
 cause he would not build on another man's 
 foundation (ch. 15 : 20-22), or for what other pos- 
 sible reason he does not state. — That I might 
 have some fruit in you also. "Not wages 
 as result of my apostolic labor, for such is not 
 the ordinary meaning of the word in the New 
 Testament, but fruit borne by you who have been 
 planted to bring forth fruit to God. This fruit I 
 should then gather and present to God." — 
 (Alford.) — I am debtor both to the Greeks, 
 etc. Because all are the children of God, and 
 because in all Christ is represented (Matt. 25 : 4o, 45)- 
 Christian life owes to all whatever Christian 
 service it can render them, because it owes all to 
 Christ (Gal. 6 : lo). It is on this ground that Chris- 
 tian missions must stand, not on the debt which 
 Christians owe to humanity ; nor on the peril of 
 eternal death in which the heathen stand ; but on 
 the debt which the children of God owe to those 
 whom God hath made and for whom Christ hath 
 died. — So as much as in me is. According to 
 my ability and opportunity ; this is always the 
 measure of Christian duty. — I am ready to 
 preach the Gospel, etc. To proclaim the 
 glad tidings. This idea of a proclamation as by 
 a herald of good news, is always a prominent one 
 in this word, which in our modern use of it has 
 largely lost its original significance. To every 
 Boul that receives the Gospel, it comes as glad 
 news, before heard but not comprehended. 
 
 16,17. These verses constitute the text of the 
 entire Epistle to the Romans, and the key to its 
 proper understanding. If these verses are mis- 
 read, the whole Epistle vdll be falsely interpreted. 
 They contain the germ of the ti-uth to which 
 Paul gave his life, the truth more fully stated in 
 eh. 3 : 20-26. Referring the reader for a fuller 
 discussion of the meaning of the passage and 
 explanation of the key-words, righteousness and 
 faith to the Introduction, I here content mj'self 
 with a brief statement of the meaning of the 
 various clauses, leaving the justification of the 
 definition offered to the Introduction, and the 
 general course of interpretation afforded by the 
 notes upon the Epistle. It is to be understood 
 in the outset that the best text differs in one or 
 two particulars from that on which our English 
 version is based. The words "of Chrisf^ after 
 Gospel are omitted, and the word * ^ first ''^ after 
 Jew is bracketed by Westcott and Hort. — I am 
 not ashamed of the Gospel. This expres- 
 sion indicates that Paul had sometimes to strug- 
 gle against the temptation produced by the 
 
 universal contempt and derision with which his 
 story of the world's Messiah crucified as a male- 
 factor was generally received. The best inter- 
 pretation of this experience of struggle and 
 victory is that afforded by 1 Cor. 2 : 1-5. The 
 Gospel, or Glad Tidings, is the story of the life, 
 death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, 
 believed by all his followers to be the Messiah, 
 the Son of the living God (Matt, le : is), by whom 
 every one that has faith is justified from all 
 things from which thej' could not be justified by 
 the law of Moses (Acts 13 : 39). This Gospel was in 
 the possession of the Church when Paul wrote 
 this Epistle, either in the present form, or as an 
 oral tradition. It was the theme of Paul's 
 preaching everywhere, from his beginning at 
 Damascus, where he preached Christ in the syn- 
 agogue that he is the Son of God. Comp. Acts 
 13 : IC^l, which gives an illustration of his 
 preaching of the Gospel. — For it is the power 
 .of God unto salvation to all that exercise 
 faith. Three things Paul says here of his Gos- 
 pel : 1st, its quality ; it is a divine power, a power 
 not only employed by but proceeding from God, 
 as gravitation is the power of God for binding 
 the worlds together. 2d, its end ; it is unto sal- 
 vation, a deliverance of the individual and of 
 society from sin and all the curse which sin 
 involves (Ephes. 2 : 1-10) ; 3d, it is unto all that ex- 
 ercise faith, whether Jew or Gentile. It is ques- 
 tionable whether the word first belongs here ; if 
 so, it signifies first in time not in importance, and 
 is to be interpreted by Paul's custom of preach- 
 ing first to the Jews in their synagogues, and 
 then turning to the Gentiles (Acts 13 : 46 ; 18 : e ; 
 19 :8, 9 ; comp. Rom. ch. ii). The word faith has un- 
 fortunately no corresponding verb in the English ; 
 hence the translators both of the Old and the 
 New Version, have used the word believe. But 
 faith is never used by Paul as synonymous with 
 believe ; it never indicates a merely intellectual 
 act, but always a spiritual one ; nor is it here or 
 elsewhere equivalent to trust, trust being a pas- 
 sive and faith an active exercise ; nor is it choice, 
 or an exercise of the will ; the act of the will in 
 turning to God is repentance, not faith. Faith is 
 the power of spiritual perception, the looking 
 on the things which are unseen and eternal, 
 the exercise of that power which gives evi- 
 dence of things unseen. The condition of 
 salvation here indicated is the same indicated 
 by Christ in Matt. 7 : 7-10 ; it is asking and 
 receiving, seeking and finding, knocking and 
 
Cn. I.] 
 
 KOMANS. 
 
 93 
 
 17 For therein* is the righteousness of God revealed 
 from falih to faith : as it is written," The just shall live 
 by faith. 
 
 18 For the wrath " of God is revealed from heaven 
 agjainst all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, 
 \vho hold the truth in unrighteousness ; 
 
 i-h. .t : •.>!, 45. 
 
 : 4 X Eph. i 
 
 having opened to the soul. The whole passage 
 is ilhistrati'd by and parallel to John 1 : 12. The 
 Gospel is not a new law coming as a substitute for 
 the old and with a new sanction ; it is not a new 
 doctrine about God or the future, nor the old one 
 coming with a new light thrown upon it ; it is a 
 new power, a power emanating from God, and 
 tilling with his spirit and life every soul that is 
 open to receive his personal intlueuce. — For 
 therein is revealed God's righteousness. 
 Not tfie righteousness of God, as in the Old Ver- 
 sion, for the definite article is wanting ; nor a 
 righteousness of God, as in the New Version, for 
 the absence of the definite article does not signify 
 any such indefiniteness as is indicated by a use of 
 the indefinite article (,see ver. 2, note) ; but God's 
 righteousness. To determme what Paul means 
 by this phrase we have simply to look in the 
 Gospel, as it is presented to us in the four biog- 
 raphies of Jesus Christ, or in such reports of 
 Paul's preaching as have been preserved to us. 
 What is there revealed is not a scheme of doctrine, 
 but a living per.ion, not a divine attribute, nor a 
 plan of salvation, but the Christ the Son of the 
 living God, who declared of himself, " I have 
 manifested thy name unto the men thou gavest 
 me out of the world. " The righteousness of God, 
 as Paul uses that term, is the true character of 
 God, as manifested to the world in the person of 
 Ms Son. This is what is revealed in the Gospel, 
 and this revelation is the power of God unto 
 salvation, because it is revealed as a character 
 ■which ever goes out of itself to bring into itself 
 and into true righteousness all those who are 
 willing to subject themselves to its living and life- 
 giving influences. Thus Paul's declaration here 
 i* paralleled by Christ's definition of his own mis- 
 sion in his intercessory prayer : "As thou hast 
 given him power over all flesh, that he should 
 give eternal life to as many as thou hast given 
 him. And this is life eternal that they maj' know 
 thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom 
 thou hast sent " (John i: : 2, 3). The parallel is com- 
 plete ; by both Jesua Christ and Paul the revela- 
 tion in Christ is declared to be a powir, and over 
 all flesh ; what Jesus calls life Paul calls righteous- 
 ness, what Jesus calls knowing God and Jesus 
 Christ, Paul calls believing in or having fnith in 
 God and in Jesus Christ. — From faith to faith. 
 That is, this divine character is revealed a-^ some- 
 thing which proceeds from faith and is disclosed 
 to faith. This character of (iod is re-produced 
 in man so that he becomes a child of God, an li"ir 
 of God and joint-heir with the Lord Jesus Christ 
 
 (Rom. 8: 16, 17), being made a partaker of the divine 
 nature (2 Pet. 1 : 4 ; Heb. 12 : lo) ; Christ being thus 
 the first born among many brethren (Rom. 8:29). 
 This divine character is so reproduced in man 
 when it is revealed, not to his intellect, but to his 
 spiritual perception, that is, to his faith power ; 
 as exemplified in him it proceeds not from his 
 will l)ut from his spiritual sympathy with God in 
 Christ, that is, from his faith power. Only when 
 it can be said of us as Christ said of Peter, 
 " Blessed art thou Simon, son of Jona, for flesh 
 and blood hnth not revealed it unto thee but my 
 Father which is in heaven," do we receive the 
 truth ; only when we are reflecting as from a mir- 
 ror the glory of the Lord and are so changed 
 into the same image, do we manifest the truth 
 (2 Cor. 3 : 18). Faith receives and faith gives forth 
 this life. This two-fold truth, that righteousness 
 proceeds from faith and is revealed to faith, is 
 made clear by the Gospel, that is, by the story of 
 Christ's life ; for he manifested to us at once the 
 true character of God and the secret of character- 
 building in man. The source of his divine life is 
 declared with many reiterations to be his faith in 
 his Father. He can do nothing of himself but 
 what he seeth his Father do. The Father is in 
 him and he is in the Father ; the works that he 
 does are his Father's works; the words that he 
 speaks he sjieaks by his Father's authority ; his 
 glory is the glory which he had with the Father; 
 and the works which he has done are the works 
 which his Father has given him to do. Thus in 
 the Gt)si)el is revealed a Person who not only ex- 
 emplified the true character of God, but who also 
 shows how all godly life springs from faith. And 
 it is equally true that the story of this life shows 
 that this true character of God is perceived only 
 by faith. The truth which is hid from the wise 
 and prudent is revealed unto babes who possess 
 that child-like spirit without which no one can 
 enter, or even see the character of God (Matt. 11 :2ii, 
 27). It is not until the descent of the Holy Spirit 
 and the bajjtism of faith which the Holy Sj)irit 
 brought, that there came to be, even in the 
 apostle's thoughts, any thing like a clear compre- 
 hension of the true character of Christ as God 
 manifest in the flesh. Tliis character is revealed 
 as one which imparts itself to the believer, trans- 
 forming the impetuous and irate John into the 
 bi'loved disci])le ; and the impulsive Peter into 
 a firm and faithful witness to the Resurrection. 
 When, then, Paul declares in this verse that in the 
 (iosi)e] is rcvealeil the righteousness of (iotl by 
 faith unto faith, I understand that his mean- 
 
94 
 
 EOMANS. 
 
 [Ch. I. 
 
 ing is to be interpreted by a study of the Gospel, 
 and that this study shows what his meaning is — 
 namely, that the Gospel reveals the true charac- 
 ter of God, as one who imparts his own character 
 to the willing recipient, so that the divine life in 
 human experience comes from God, and is both 
 disclosed unto faith and is seen to proceed from 
 faith. — As it is Avritten. In Habakkuk 2 : 4. 
 The meaning of the prophet in the connection in 
 which he uses the words is well given by Hen- 
 derson. " While those Jews who, elated by false 
 views of security, refused to listen to the Divine 
 message should have their security disturbed, 
 and their minds agitated by the calamities with 
 which they would be visited, such as lived right- 
 eously before God and men, should experience 
 true happiness in the exercise of faith in that 
 message and others which God might communi- 
 cate to them by his prophets." Paul uses the 
 prophet's language much as we might use an ap- 
 propriate quotation from Bacon or Shakespeare. 
 " Like the other writers of the New Testament, 
 the apo^^tle detaches them (his quotations from 
 the Old Testament) from the context. He seems 
 hardly to have thought of the connection in 
 which they originally occurred. He quotes as 
 persons in the present day might quote who are 
 unaccustomed to the critical study of Scripture. 
 His aim is to seize the common spirit of the Old 
 Testament and the New ; to bring forward that 
 side of the Old Testament which is anticipatory 
 of the New. Hence he rarely dwells on similarity 
 of words, but on passages which speak of for- 
 giveness of sins, of the nearness of God to men, 
 of faith counted for righteousness." — iJowett.) 
 To this explanation, however, must be added that 
 Paul usually gives, as he certainly does in this 
 case, a far deeper significance to the words quoted 
 than they appear in the mind of the Old Testament 
 writer, or in the application which could have 
 been made of them in his time. 
 
 18. For. Colenso gives the connection of this 
 passage with what follows to ch. 3 : 23 admira- 
 bly. I condense : He begins by assuming that 
 God's universal dealings with mankind, and the 
 secret voice of conscience, are ever testifying 
 that there is a wrath of God as well as a mercy 
 of God for all willful sin, whether of Jew or 
 Gentile. Then having made a general statement, 
 which really includes the Jew as well as the 
 Gentile, Paul does not apply it immediately to the 
 former ; but he takes the Jewish reader by guile, 
 turns off his attention, as it were, for a while 
 from what he is doing, and adroitly first carries 
 him away with him to condemn the heathen 
 sinning against light, which the Jew will very 
 readily join him in doing. It seems as if he 
 could not find language strong enough to bring 
 the heathen under condemnation as sinners. He 
 keeps the same point steadily before him, namely. 
 
 that God's wrath is being revealed upon those 
 who know what is right, yet willingly and will- 
 fully do what is wrong (vers, is-si, 25, 28). Thus 
 while condemning such sinners against their better 
 light and knowledge, he will have borne the 
 Jewish reader along with him, borne away, as it 
 were, unconsciously by the power of the truth in 
 the strong current of his vehement words. Then 
 suddenly with admirable abruptness, he stops 
 short, brings up the Jew in a moment, turns round 
 upon him and asks. Well ! and you who are able 
 to join so readily in passing judgment upon these ; 
 you who know that such acts in the heathen are 
 wrong — I ask you, are they not wrong in the Jew 
 also? (ch. 2:1, etc.) — There is revealed. Not 
 there has been revealed ; the tense is present ; 
 the fact is continuous. There is being constantly 
 revealed (1) in evei-y man's consciousness, in the 
 witness of his own conscience against the wrong, 
 within himself and in others, that witness to 
 which Paul indirectly appeals in this chapter, and 
 distinctly and directly appeals in the next chap- 
 ter ; (2) in the history of his providential dealings 
 with man, that history which is as inomortal as 
 the race, and which bears its witness to Gentile 
 as well as to Jew, though best interpreted in the 
 Old Testament Scriptures. — God's wrath. Not 
 the wrath of God, nor a wrath of God ; as in verse 
 17 the definite article is wanting, but its omission 
 does not give indeflniteness to the assertion (see 
 note, ver. 17). Bcware of Substituting punishment '1 
 for wrath ; the truth of God's wrath can no more 
 be eliminated from Scripture witliout unraveling 
 its whole texture than can the truth of his love. 
 They are indeed the light and shade of the same 
 quality in Him. Love has its wrath, and the in- 
 tensity of the indignation against evil and false- 
 hood, will and must be exactly proportioned to 
 the intensity of the love for goodness and truth. 
 — From heaven. It is a question whether the 
 meaning is wrath from heaven is revealed, or 
 wrath is revealed from heaven, that is, whether 
 the wrath or the revelation is represented as pro- 
 ceeding from heaven. The Greek is capable of 
 either construction. — Against all impiety. Or 
 irreverence^ that is, toward God ; and unri^ht> 
 eousness, i. e. toward man. So we have in 
 Titus 2 : 12 that we should live soberly as regards 
 ourselves, righteously as regards our neighbor, 
 and godly or piously as regards God. Observe 
 the wrath is revealed not against the impious and 
 the unrighteous, but against the impiety and the 
 unrighteousness. Not against personal offend- 
 ers, as the pagans universally represent, e. g. 
 the wrath of Jupiter is always against some one 
 who has done him a personal wrong or affront ; 
 nor against the pagans peculiarly as the Jews 
 thought ; but against sin and against ei>cry form 
 and manifestation of sin. — Of men who hold 
 back the truth in unrighteousness. Rather 
 
Cii. I.j 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 95 
 
 19 Because that which may be known of God is 
 lanifest in them ; for God >' hath shewed it unto them. 
 
 20 For the invisible things ol him from the creation 
 
 of the world are clearly seen^ being understood by the 
 thinf^s'' that are made, even his eternal power and God- 
 head ; so that they are without excuse. 
 
 y John 1 : 9. . . .z Ps. 19 : 1, etc. 
 
 of those men who hold back the truth. The 
 stress of tlie apostle's tlioiifjlit iu this and the 
 next chapter is to show that all men, whether 
 Gentile or Jew, are guilty beftue God, because 
 to them all a revelatiou of truth has been made 
 and they have uot followed it. They have held 
 back the truth from accomplishiiifr its divine 
 l>urpose in and for them, by their practical diso- 
 bedience to it. Alford gives the meaning well: 
 "Who, possessing enough of the germs of relig- 
 ious and moral verity to preserve them from 
 abandonment, have checked the development of 
 this truth in their lives, in the love and practice 
 of sin." Comp. John 7:17; 8:43, 43, 47. The 
 secret of all impiety and unrighteousness — not 
 of all doubts and difficulties — is the refusal to 
 follow the truth, the holding it back, and the 
 holding back from it iu the indulgence of some 
 recognized and conscious violation of moral law. 
 19, 20. Because that which may be 
 known of God is manifested in them. 
 Not that which is kuow'ii of God, though this is 
 the rendering of Meyer, Jowett, and Alford ; but 
 that irhu'h may be seen, as rendered by the trans- 
 lators, both iu the Old and New Version. The 
 arguments for the other rendering given by Meyer 
 anil Alford are far from satisfactory ; and Meyer 
 incidentally shows that the word has certainly 
 the other signification in pliilosoi)hical Greek. 
 It occurs no\vhere else in Paul, and nowhere else 
 in any philosophical connection in the New Tes- 
 tament. Paul uses two Greek words which are 
 indiscriminately translated in our English text 
 know ; the one (n'di'i) he usually employs to sig- 
 nify spiritual perception (see introduction, p. 37), the 
 other ( yt rciozco) to signify intellectual knowledge. 
 The latter is the word used here. Paul does not 
 say that God is manifested either to or in the 
 Gentile by nature ; what he does say is tliat so 
 much of God as is to be intellectually appre- 
 hended was manifested in them ; and in the next 
 verse he goes on to explain what this is which 
 can be known of God by intellectual processes, 
 and what is manifested to the intellect by nature 
 and life, namely, the eternal power and the God- 
 hcad. The spiritual nature of God is spiritually 
 discerned, and this spiritual nature the pagans 
 had darkened by holding back the truth in un- 
 righteousness. The contrast here is not between 
 that which may be known about God without a 
 revelation, as distinguished from that which is 
 revealed in the Scripture, bttt between that which 
 is knowahle intellectually and that which is per- 
 ceivable spiritually. The intellectual knowledge 
 
 was afforded to the Gentiles ; but they would not 
 accept or follow it, and so they failed to receive 
 the spiritual knowledge. — For God mani- 
 fested it unto them. " The tense used in the 
 Greek is the aorist, and it implies God has man- 
 ifested it from time to time, still manifests and 
 will manifest." — [Golenao.) — For the invisible 
 things of him. Not all his moral and spiritual 
 attributes as revealed by Christ or as interpreted 
 by sjairitual experience ; Paul's declaration here 
 is interpreted and limited by the clause which 
 presently follows : — Since the creation of 
 the Avorld are clearly seen, being per- 
 ceived through the things that are made. 
 The evidence for the existence of a divine creator 
 is as old as creation and as universal as nature. 
 It has been recognized by intelligent pagan phi- 
 losophy in all ages. It is of this evidence Paul 
 here speaks. — Even his everlasting power 
 and godhead, 'isni eternal, as in the Old Ver- 
 sion, but ei'erlastitii/, as in the New. The word 
 {tndtog) occurs only here and in Jude 6. It is 
 not the word tised elsewhere in the New Testa- 
 ment in the phrases " eternal life " and " eternal 
 death." The word Godhead excellently well 
 renders the original {9ei)T>ig), which signifies not 
 the whole moral and spiritual character of God 
 as it is revealed in Christ and recognized by 
 Christian consciousness, but that headship over 
 nature which aU pagan i)hilosophy has recognized. 
 This clause limits all that has preceded. What- 
 ever may be known of Gad, whatever is manifested 
 to the pagan world, whatever is perceived through 
 the things that are made is uot God, nor the moral 
 and spiritual attributes of God ; but his ever- 
 lasting power in creation and his everlasting 
 headship over it. Herbert Spencer, the ablest 
 exponent of the purest and best modern pagan- 
 ism, has well embodied in a sentence this consum- 
 mation of pagan theological thought : " Amid 
 the mysteries which become the more mysterious 
 the more they arc thought about, there will 
 remain the one absolute certainty, that he is ever 
 in the presence of an Infinite and Eternal Energy 
 from which all things proceed." — {Xineteenth Cent- 
 riry, Jan., 1884). — So that they are without 
 excuse. Or, that they maybe without excuse. The 
 former is the Old, the latter the New Version. 
 Whether Paul here means to declare that God 
 made a revelation of himself in nature for the 
 purpose of depriving mankind of all excuse for 
 not worshifung or serving liitn, or only that this 
 inexcusableness is a result of that revelation, is 
 a {joint which has been hotly discussed ; it was 
 
96 
 
 EOMANS. 
 
 [Ch. I. 
 
 21 Because that, when they knew God, they glori- 
 fied him not as God, neither were thankful- but be- 
 came vain ^ in their imaginations, and their foolish heart 
 was darkened : 
 
 22 Professing themselves to be wise, they i" became 
 fools, 
 
 23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God 
 into an image" made like to corruptible man, and to 
 birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. 
 
 Ephes. 4 : n, 18.. ..b Je 
 
 8, 9 e Isa. 40 : 18, 26 j Ezek. 8:10. 
 
 In dispute between Luther and Calvin in the time 
 of Luther. Either interpretation is borne out by 
 the Greek. The emphatic fact is, however, not 
 that God designed to deprive them of excuse, 
 but that they are in fact inexcusable. Paul, 
 taking as his starting-point the fact that the 
 pagan world has had revealed to it the ever- 
 lasting power and Godhead of God declares them 
 without excuse for their lives of godlessness and 
 immorality, because they do not follow the light 
 which they have received, but by their disobe- 
 dience to the truth deaden and destroy that 
 spiritual power by which alone God is spiritually 
 perceived. The key-note to this whole passage 
 is the statement in the context that the wrath 
 of God is revealed against men who hold back the 
 truth in u7irighteousness. Paul does not, however, 
 declare that they are without forgivenciss. Paul 
 is not drawing a distinction between the heathen 
 and the Jew ; on the contrary, he is showing 
 that both stand alike in the condemnation of 
 their own conscience, which is the earthly prophet 
 of God's eternal judgment, that neither are 
 Tightened by (1) having done right or (2) by apol- 
 ogy, defense, or justification, for having failed to 
 do right. How they may be rightened he is to 
 show hereafter. Neither does Paul here or any- 
 where teach or imply that Natural Theology 
 gives a knowledge of or acquaintance with God ; 
 only a basis for that knowledge in making clear 
 " the Infinite and Eternal Energy from which all 
 things proceed." See Acts IT : 23-28, where the 
 evidence of God's power and Godhead afforded 
 by nature and history are made by Paul the basis 
 for the conclusion that men should seek the Lord 
 if they may feel after him, because in the God 
 that has made the heaven and the earth we live 
 and move and have our being. Nature reveals 
 that there is a God ; but men neither revere his 
 character nor are thankful for his gifts, but 
 engage in fruitless debates, degrade the religious 
 instinct into the grossest sensuous worship, and 
 thence descend into vice and immorality of worse 
 description. Thus Paul traces immorality to 
 godlessness, and godlessness to willful rejection 
 of God, not to innocent ignorance of him. 
 
 21-23. Because that knowins; God. 
 That is, as already explained, having an intel- 
 lectual knowledge of the everlasting power and 
 Godhead of the Creator; knowing that there is 
 and must be a God. — They glorified him not 
 as God, neither gave thanks. Their moral 
 
 nature did n ot follow the light of their intellectual. 
 — But became fruitless in their debates. 
 
 Or reasonings as in New Version, not imaginatio?is 
 as in the Old. What Paul condemns is not 
 imagination but fruitless discussion. In place of 
 obeying the truth as disclosed to them, an obe- 
 dience which would have enabled the truth to 
 produce its fruits in their lives, one of which 
 would be a clearer and better understanding of 
 the truth, they gave themselves up to philo- 
 sophical discussions, theological debate, doubtful 
 disputations. The fruitlessness of disputings 
 {diu?.()yinu(',c) contrasted with the fruitfulness of 
 obedience, is a frequent theme of instruction in 
 the New Testament which seems often to con- 
 demn and never commends intellectual disputings 
 about religion. See the following passages where 
 the word here rendered reasonings is variously 
 rendered thouglits, doubtful disputations, disputings 
 and doubting. Matt. 15 : 19 ; Mark 7 : 21 ; Luke 
 24 : .38 ; Kom. 14 : 1 ; Phil. 3 : 14 ; 1 Tim. 2:8; 
 James 2 : 4. — And their undiscerning heart 
 Avas darkened. Spiritual truth is perceived 
 by the heart not by the l)rain ; that is, by the 
 spiritual not by the intellectual nature (see ch. 
 10:8; 1 Cor. 2:14). By Substituting for obedience 
 to the truth as perceived, fruitless debates about 
 the unknown, the spiritual nature loses its power 
 of discernment, the heart becomes darkened. — 
 Professing themselves to be w^ise they be- 
 come stupid. The Greeks prided themselves 
 on their acuteness ; Paul charged upon them 
 that they had lost the very quality on which 
 they plumed themselves. The word rendered 
 fools is literally dull, the reverse of acute or 
 quick-witted. We need not go back to Greece 
 and Rome for illustration of the principle here 
 laid down. Self-conceit always dulls and deadens 
 the spiritual and moral nature, and weakens even 
 the intellectual (Prov. 26 : 12) ; and scholastic the- 
 ology in the middle ages and modern life affords 
 abundant illustration of this truth. Directly the 
 converse of the historic statement here made is 
 Christ's prescription for the attainment of spir- 
 itual wisdom (Matt. 11 : 25 ; IS ■. s).— And changed 
 the glory, etc. Compare Paul's condemnation 
 of the Athenians for their idolatry (acu n : 29) and 
 Isaiah's caustic satire of it (isaiah, ch. 44). " Deities 
 of the human form prevailed in Greece— those of 
 the bestial in Egypt. Both methods were prac- 
 ticed in Rome."— (J?/o»-fZ.) This deification of 
 human and animal forms has lost for us its 
 
Cii. l.j 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 97 
 
 J4 Wlieretore God also gave them'' up to unclean- 
 ness through the lusts ot their own hearts, to dishonour 
 tlicir own bodies between themselves: 
 
 25 Who changed the truth of God" into a lie, and 
 worshipped and served the creature more than the 
 Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. 
 
 d l>t. 81 : \i ; 3 Theag. 2 : 11 . . 
 
 degradin<i and put on an esthetic aspect. It is to 
 u.s no lontrer worship, but only art ; and it is 
 difficult for us to conceive the signilicancc of 
 tlie Greek statuary to a devout Jew, or even to a 
 truly devout pagan theist. " The very antiquity 
 of heathenism gives it a kind of sacredness to 
 us. The cliarms of classical literature add a 
 grace. It was otherwise with the Jews and first 
 believers. They saw onlj' cities wholly given to 
 idolatry, whose gods were but sticks and stones, 
 described in the sarcasm of the prophet, 'The 
 workman maketh a graven image.' '' — {Jowett). It 
 must be remembered, too, that these images rep- 
 resented gods of cruelty, and furnished motives 
 only for a religion of fear. The character of the 
 religion represented and nourished by them is 
 thus described by Plutarch : "The workmen in 
 copper, stone, and wax can persuade such that 
 the gods are in human shape ; for so they make 
 them, so they draw them, and so they worship 
 them. But they will not hear either philosophers 
 or statesmen that describe the majesty of the 
 Divinity as accompanied by goodness, magna- 
 nimity, benignity, and beneficence, * * * They 
 are afraid of their gods, and yet run to them ; 
 thej' lawn upon them and reproach them ; they 
 invoke them and accuse them." — {Essaij on Super- 
 atit on. ) 
 
 21, 25. Wherefore God gave tlieiii over. 
 As one is given over to a magistrate for trial and 
 punishment. The Greek word {nufiudidioidi) is the 
 one used in Matt. '> : "25 ; Acts 13 : -1 ; 22 : 4 ; 
 1 Cor. 11 : 2 ; 1 Tim. 1 : 20 ; and these passages 
 indicate its meaning here. God is represented 
 as giving the sinner over to his own sinning for 
 jiunishment. The attempt which has been made 
 to soften the expression so that it shall read, 
 God permitted them to give themselves over, is 
 justly condemned by Meyer and Jowett as an 
 attempt to read into Paul's writing an "after- 
 thought of theology." "To tlie Apostle God is 
 the living (Jod, who does not passively 7Jtrmi< the 
 retributive consequences of idolatry or apostasy 
 — thus, as it were, letting them run their course, 
 a^ an artificer does with his wheel-work — but 
 himself, everywhere active, pervades and effect- 
 ually develops the arrangements which he has 
 made. If then God has so arranged that man by 
 aposta.sy from him should fall into moral impu- 
 rity, and that so sin shall be punished by sin 
 (and this connection of sin with sin is in accord- 
 ance both with experience and Scripture. Is. 
 (1 : 10 ; Job 8:4; Ps. 69 : 27 ; 81 : 12 ; Mark 4 : 12), 
 this can only be carried out Id reality through 
 
 the effectual action of its originator, and God 
 himself must give up the apostate into impiety, 
 as it is by his so doing that moral connection is 
 in i)oint of fact accomplished." — {Meyer.) The 
 expression of Paul is not to be softened, nor the 
 terrible truth, repeated again in ver. 28, to be 
 lightened. But it is to be taken in its connection 
 and with the clause immediately following ; and 
 it is to be remembered that this giving up of the 
 sinner to his sin, is a really giving up of him to 
 himself ; by one who not only allows him, if he 
 will, to return from the prison house to which 
 he is delivered as a captive, but also gives his 
 only begotten Son that he may redeem him from 
 that captivity. — In the ardent desires of 
 their heart. In accordance therewith ; they 
 were surrendered to their own evil desires. So 
 that while it is true that God gives over the 
 sinner to his sms, it is also and equally true that 
 the sinner goes himself over to their custody and 
 control (Eph. 4:19). — Unto uncleaniiess, to 
 disihonor their own bodies among them- 
 selves. Following their own bodily appetites 
 and passions, the pagans had dishonored God 
 (vers. I'l, 23), God gavc them up to follow their 
 own bent, the end of which was the dishonoring 
 of their own bodies. Observe how Paul through- 
 out this chapter uses that i)liraseology which 
 would be most likely to awaken a sense of shame 
 in a pagan Greek or Roman ; as here in charging 
 upon them dishonor of their bodies, and in ver. 
 2G dishonorable passions, and in ver. 27 working 
 that which is deijraved. Honor and bodily 
 strength and beauty were still in a measure 
 recognized as good and to be desired, even in 
 pagan Greek and Rome. — Who changed the 
 truth of God into a lie — as described in ver. 
 23 — and feared and served. The first word 
 expresses the feeling, the second the action of 
 pagan religi(jn. All pagan religions are religions 
 of fear, not love. The word here used {(iirio,uat), 
 in both Old and New Versions translated wor- 
 shiped, is used in tlie New Testament only of 
 idolatrous worship, excepting in Acts 17:2;! 
 (devotions) and 2 Tliess. 2 : 4. The word ren- 
 dered served {lurnn'w) primarily signifies such 
 service as is rendered by a hired servant ; hence, 
 a general service of God (Luiie 4 : s), and, finally, a 
 priestly or temple service (Luke i : 74; Heb. u -. lo). 
 The latter is the meaning here ; for this was the 
 only service of the gods which i)aganism recog- 
 nized. — The created rather than the Cre- 
 ator. Not merely n.nre than as in the Old Ver- 
 sion. In fact, they did not fear nor serve the 
 
98 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 [Ch. L 
 
 26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile aflFec- 
 tions : ' for even their women did change the natural 
 use into that which is against nature : 
 
 27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural 
 use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward an- 
 other ; men with men working that which is unseemly, 
 and receivmg in themselves that recompence of their 
 error which was meet. 
 
 28 And even as they did not like to retain God in 
 their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate 
 miud, to do those things which are not convenient : 
 
 29 Being filled witli all unrighteousness, fornication, 
 wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness ; lull ot envy, 
 murder, debate, deceit, malignity ; whisperers, 
 
 30 Backbiters, haters of God. despiteful, proud. 
 
 f Ephes. 5 : 12; Jude 10. 
 
 Creator at all. The meaning is either in prefer- 
 ence to, or in hostility to the Creator ; either, or 
 both, may be implied in the original. — Who is 
 blessed forever. Amen. "A natural effu- 
 sion of deeply moved piety — called forth by the 
 detestable contrast of the GentDe abasement just 
 described." — {Meyer). These doxologies, into 
 which Paul now and then breaks forth (comp. ch. 
 
 ^ : 25 ; 9 : 5 ; 11 : 33-36 ; 1 Cor. 15 : 57 ; Eph, 3 : 21, etc.), illus- 
 trate at once the intensity of his impassioned 
 feelings, and the vivid realization of God's pres- 
 ence in which he habitually lived. The dishonor 
 cast upon God was ineffectual to cast any real 
 dishonor upon him. He was still, to Paul's faith, 
 God blessed — literally well spoken of (fL'/loyijrJ?) 
 — forever. 
 
 2G-32. For this cause God gave them up. 
 Paul picks up again the thread which he dropped 
 in verse 29, and resumes his statement of that to 
 which God had given them up in the lust of their 
 hearts, particularly the uncleanness to which 
 they were captive. The specifications here enu- 
 merated are abundantly borne out by the history 
 of Rome under the emperors. (See Introduction, 
 eh. V, and authorities there cited.) No elaborate 
 illustration or interpretation of the specifications 
 of this indictment are here called for. — Vile 
 passions. Rather, dishonorable passions. Pride 
 remained, the ^nly semblance of virtue in the 
 apostate Roman ; Paul seeks \vith an orator's in- 
 Btinctive skill to touch this pride. — The women 
 — the men. father, the females, the males. Paul 
 will not give them the honorable title of men and 
 women, but uses words which belong to them 
 simply as a part of the animal creation. — 
 Against nature. To such unnatural courses 
 does the worship and deification of nature con- 
 duct. — Working unseemliness. Literally, 
 deformity, and this may well have been in the 
 apostle's mind, if not his primary thought. For 
 physical deformity is one of the results of such 
 moral deformity ; and the results of the gross 
 licentiousness of that age are seen in the degen- 
 erate race which inhabit Greece and Italy to this 
 day. This interpretation agrees also with the 
 clause which follows — Receiving in them- 
 selves that recompense of their error 
 which was fit. A people, who prided them- 
 selves on the development of the body, who ap- 
 plauded the gladiator and the gymnast above all 
 others, and who gave themselves to the indul- 
 
 gence of the body, receive in physical degen- 
 eracy and deformity the fit reward of their 
 crimes. Error seems a singularly mUd word to 
 describe the cause, but by it Paul carries back 
 the imagination to the beginning of his descrip- 
 tion ; they held hack the truth in unrighteousness. 
 This was the beginning of their wandering ; the 
 physical degeneracy was its final and fit out- 
 come. — And as they chose not to have God 
 in their knowledge. A deliberate determina- 
 tion not to know God is involved in the declara- 
 tion. It is paralleled by Job 21 : 14; 22 : 17 ; Ps. 14 : 
 1 ; 53 : 1. Comp. Ps. 2 : 2; Luke- 19 : 14.— God gave 
 them over to a reprobate mind. A blame- 
 worthy mind, or a worthless mind. The former 
 is the preferable translation; to a mind con- 
 demned by God and, in fact, also by their owti 
 conscience. For the third time Paul declares 
 that God gave them up, for the third time, also, 
 that he gave them up, not to an external tor- 
 ment or tormentor, but to themselves, to follow 
 the bent of their own deliberate decision and 
 their own conduct and evil desires. There is a 
 play on the words in the original which can not 
 be repeated in English. Alford suggests it by 
 the phrase, "Because they reprobated God, God 
 gave them over to a reprobate mind." Cony- 
 beare, by the phrase, "As they thought fit to cast 
 out the acknowledgment of God, God gave them 
 over to an outcast mind." — To do those things 
 which are not fit. Not decent, proper, moral. 
 The end of practical atheism is immorality. — 
 Being filled with all unrighteousness; 
 this is the general term signifying departure 
 from right lines in character and condition; 
 what follows is a specification in which, says 
 Jowett, the order sometimes follows associations 
 of soul, sometimes of sense. No special signifi- 
 cation attaches to the order, and the description 
 is to be read rather as the outpoured expression 
 of Paul's masterful indignation at the aspect 
 presented of pagan society in his day, than as a 
 philosophical statement in any deliberately 
 chosen arraignment of the sins of the human 
 race, or of the ancient world. — Fornication, 
 villainy; the more active form of evil; gen- 
 erally rendered wickedness (Lnke ii : 39 ; 1 cor. 5:8; 
 Eph. 6 : 12). — Covetousness, maliciousness, 
 being full of envy, murder, strife, de- 
 ceit, malignity; ill-nature, desire of evU to 
 others. Comp. the language here, fidl of, with 
 
Cii. 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 99 
 
 boasters, inventors ol evil things, disobedient to pa- 
 rents, 
 
 31 Without understanding, covenant breakers, with- 
 out natural affection, implacable, unmerciful : 
 
 32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they 
 which commit such Ihinj^s arc worthy ot deall), not 
 only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do 
 them. 
 
 Matt. 12 : »4, 35, 45 ; 15 : 18, 10 ; 23 : 25-2S. It is 
 the heart /mW of these thmj^s, as imaginations and 
 desires, which is abominable in the sight of God, 
 though the outward life may be correct. — Whis- 
 p€>rers, backbiters, the one are secret slan- 
 derers, the 01 her open calumniators. Observe 
 how the crime of slander, so often condoned by 
 modem society, and even by modem church 
 society, is classed with lying, lust, and murder 
 
 by the sacred writer (comp. 1 Cor. 6 : lO; 2 Cor. 12 : 20 ; 
 1 Tim. 5 : l.-i; 1 Pet. 2 : l). — Ilateful tO God. Not 
 
 haters of (jod, a meaning which the word here 
 used never has in classic Greek, and it is used 
 here only in the New Testament. "If any crime 
 was known more than another as ' hated by the 
 gods,' it was that of delatorcx, abandoned persons 
 who circumvented and ruined others by a sj-stem 
 of malignant espionage and false information." — 
 (jl(/()*d.)— Insolent, haughty, boastful; the 
 three sins of jiride, the first that of despising 
 others, the second that of conceit with ourselves, 
 the third that of seeking others' praise by self- 
 l)raise ; the first are injurious to others, the 
 second are puffed in themselves, the third are 
 ostentatiou.s and self-laudatorj* ; the fir.st is the 
 selfishness i>f pride, the second its self-conceit, 
 the thir<l iisvanitj-; the first is the sin of self- 
 love, the second the sin of self-conceit, the 
 I bird the sin of self-laudation. — Inventors 
 of evil. Passed the point at which they yield 
 to the solicitation of wickedness, and come to 
 that in which they invent new forms of wicked- 
 ness. The licentious literature in our own day 
 affords an illustration of this phase of human 
 wickedness. — Disobedient to parents. An- 
 archy in the family is one of the sure precursors 
 of anarchy in the state, and one of the most ter- 
 rible symptoms of moral decay in the com- 
 munity. We have not to go to Rome for illus- 
 tration of it. — W i t h o u t understanding. 
 Moral degradation is incompatible with the high- 
 est intelligence. Conscientious belief in right 
 and wrong is essential to an intelligent under- 
 standing of life, and an intelligent solution of its 
 daily problems. — Covenant breakers. Con- 
 trast Ps. 15 : 4. — WithonI natural affection. 
 " Mothers who exposed their children, emperors 
 or satraps who put their brothers to death." — 
 {Jowett. ) In modern society parents also resign 
 the care of their children into other hands, that 
 
 they may give themselves up to society and sen- 
 suous enjoyments. — Unmerciful. Illustrated 
 by the gladiatorial combats which became such 
 monstrous exhibitions of cruelty under Nero 
 (see Introduction, ch. v.) ; a crime, happih', rare 
 in our own time. There is in these four words a 
 rhetorical force which can not be reproduced in 
 English ; as though they all began with the pre- 
 fi.K wi or (lis; without under xtandinij^ wil/toui re- 
 spect to their covenantSy without natural affection., 
 without mercy. — Who knowing the sentence 
 of Clod. Interpreted by the connection. The 
 apostle recurs to his starting-point. The just 
 condemnation of the i)agaiis was, that they knew 
 what was right, and rli<isc what was wrong. — 
 That they which practice such things are 
 w^orthy of death. Simply a general expres- 
 sion of the sense of condemnation universal in 
 the conscience ; as if one should say, They who 
 do such things are not fit to live. — Not only do 
 the same, but have pleasure in them that 
 do them. This is the climax of moral degra- 
 dation. Many a man will do what he knows to 
 be wrong and what he will condemn in others; 
 but when he takes satisfaction in the deeds of 
 others which his conscience condemns, and from 
 the doing of which he receives no direct sensual 
 gratification, as when he does them himself, he 
 has reached the lowest conceivable moral state. 
 See for illustration of this, the story of Messalina 
 compelling the ladies of her court to practice 
 prostitution. Introduction, p. 48. This spirit is 
 the reverse of that spirit of love w-hieh rejoices 
 not in iniquity (i Cor. is : e). The student may 
 profitably compare this eitalogue of sins with 
 one from Isaiah, ch. 5 ; Gal. 5 : K)-21 ; 1 Tim. 1 : 
 9, 10; 2 Tim. 3:3-5; and contrast it with 1 Cor. 
 13 ; and Gal. 5 : 22, 23. In this catalogue the sin- 
 ful action of almost every known or supposed 
 faculty is included ; — of acquisitiveness : covet- 
 ousness and covenant-breaking ; of the appetites 
 and passions ; various forms of vice ; of destruc- 
 tiveness and combativeness : murder, malignity, 
 and strife ; of approbativeness': envy and boast- 
 fulness ; of secretiveness : deceit ; of the tongue: 
 backbiting and calumniating ; of self-esteem : 
 insolence and haughtiness ; of the intellect : 
 invention of evil things ; of the natural affec- 
 tions : disobedience to parents, lack of affec- 
 tion. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 GOD'S DEALING WITH THE HEATHEN. 
 
 Wherefore thou art without excuse, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest : for wherein 
 thou judgest 'another, thou condemnest thyself ; for thou that judgest dost practise the same 
 things. -And we know that the judgement of God is according to truth against them that 
 practise such things. And reckonest thou this, O man, who judgest them that practise such 
 things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgement of God ? Or despisest thou 
 the riches of his goodness and forl)earance and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of 
 God leadeth thee to repentance ? but after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up for 
 thyself WTath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgement of God ; who will 
 render to every man according to his works : to them that by patience in well-doing seek for 
 glory and honour and incorruption, eternal life : but unto them that are factious, and obey not 
 the truth, but obey unrighteousness, shall be wrath and indignation, tribulation and anguish, 
 upon every soul of man that worketh evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Greek ; but glory 
 and honour and peace t(i every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek : 
 for there is no respect of persons with God. For as many as have sinned without law shall alto 
 perish without law : and as many as have sinned under law shall be judged by law ; for not 
 the hearers of a law are ^just l)efore God, but the doers of a law shall be 'justified : for when 
 Gientiles which ba\e no law do by nature the things of the law, these, having no law, are a law 
 unto themselves ; in that they shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience 
 bearing witness therewith, and their 'thoughts one with another accusing or else excusing ihem ; 
 in the day when God "shall judge the secrets of men, according to my gospel, by Jesus Christ. 
 
 But if thou bearest the name of a Jew, and restest upon 'the law, and gloriest in God, and 
 knowest "his will, and "approvest the things that are excellent, being instructed out of the law, 
 and art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them that are in dark- 
 ness, '"a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of babes, ha^■iIlg in the la\v the form of knowledge 
 and of the truth ; thou therefore that teachest another, teachest thou not thyself ? thou that 
 preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal ? thou that sayest a man should not commit 
 adultery, dost thou commit adultery ? thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou ''rob temples ? thou 
 who gloriest in 'the law, through thy transgression of the law dishonourest thou God? For 
 the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you, even as it is WTitten. For 
 circumcision indeed profiteth. if thou be a doer of the law : but if thou be a transgressor of 
 the law, thy circumcision is become uncircumcision. If therefore the uncircumcision keep the 
 ordinances of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be reckoned for circumcision ? and shall not 
 the uncircumcision which is by nature, if it fulfil the law, judge thee, who with the letter and 
 circumcision art a transgressor of the law ? For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly ; 
 neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh : but he is a Jew, which is one in- 
 wardly ; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter ; whose praise is 
 not of men, but of God. 
 
 1 Gr. the other. 
 
 2 Many ancient au- 
 thorities read 
 For. 
 
 < Or, righteous. 
 \ Or, accounted 
 righteous. 
 
 5 Or, reasonings, 
 
 6 0r,judgeth. 
 
 7 Or, a law. 
 
 8 Or, the Will. 
 
 '.I Or. **provest the 
 things that differ. 
 
 10 Or 
 
 I instructor. 
 
 11 Or, commit sac- 
 
 Does God deal with the heathen on the principles of mercy or on those of justice ? 
 That 1 may make the meaning of this question clear, I quote a statement of the two prin- 
 ciples from a recent sociological paper of Herbert Spencer's. Herbert Spencer is not a 
 theologian ; it is for that reason I quote from him ; because he will not be suspected of 
 having any theological bias, or of imparting for theological reasons a distinction which does 
 not exist. The distinction which he applies to physical and moral life is, however, evidently 
 equally applicable to the moral life. Tlie italics are my own. 
 
 "It requires no proving that the blind unfledged hedge-bird or the young puppy, even 
 after it has acquired sight, would forthwith die if it had to keep itself warm and obtain its 
 own food. The gratuitous parental aid must be great in proportion as the young one is of 
 little worth, either to itself or to others ; and it may diminish as fast as by increasing 
 development the young one acquires wealth first for self-sustentation, and by and by for 
 
Ch. II.] • ROMANS. 101 
 
 tile sustiMiUitioii of otluTs. That ?.f to xay, dtiritKj immaturity benefits received clearly mud be 
 inrerticly a.s- the jtoinr or ability of the receiver. Clearly, ii' during this hrst period ol' lilV' licii- 
 etits were proportioned to merits, or rewards to deserts, the species would disappear m a 
 generation. But when the young have come to maturity there comes into play a principle 
 just the reverse of that above described. Throughout the rest of life each adult gets benejils 
 in proi>ortioii to merit — reward in i^roportion to desert; merit and desert in each case being 
 understood as ability to fulfill all the ret|uirements of life — to get food, to secure shelter, 
 to escape enemies." On which of these two principles does (iod deal with the pagan world? 
 Does lie proportion his treatment of them to their deserts, is it emmgh to show that he is 
 jii^, or does Vie proportion his benefits inversely to their deserts, does he treat them on prin- 
 ciples of mercy ^ 
 
 It is not to be doubted that theology in all ages of the world has either directly 
 asserted or (juietly assumed that God treats a part of tlie human race on princijdes of mercy 
 and a part on principles of justice ; that he is a Father to some, and a Judge or Moral Gov- 
 ernor to others. The ancient Jews believed that he was merciful to the Jews — his chosen 
 peojjle — and rigorously just to the pagans ; in meditBval Europe the Romanist believed 
 that he was merciful to the baptized; rigorously just to the unliaptized ; in the Reformed 
 church Calvinism assumed, if it did not teach, that he was merciful to the elect, and just to 
 the non-elect ; and still, even in broad and catholic minds, there is a very general impres- 
 sion that his mercy is ctmfined to Christend'om, to those nations to whom Christ has been 
 inade known, and that he is just to the pagans to whom Christ has not been made known. 
 Every Christian instinctively recognizes that for him there would be no hope, if he were 
 treated on principles of justice, if he were to get fnjin God "benefit in proportion to merit, 
 reward in proportion to desert." But a great many of the current theological disctissions 
 are conducted on the assumption that it is enough if God treat the pagan upon these prin- 
 ciples ; that it is enough to show that God has given the pagan a law by writing it oti his 
 own heart, and that he has no merit or desert which entitles him to claim a reward or ben- 
 efit. The Christian is treated on principles of mercy ; he receives Ijenefits without merit ; 
 but it is supposed that the pagan is treated on principles of justice, and can e.xpect and will 
 receive no benefit, and can not complain since he has no merit. And many if not most t)f 
 the commentators in treating this passage seem to assume that Paul's object is to justify the 
 ways of God to man, by showing that he can justly condemn the pagan who has demerit 
 and deserves condemnation. Wliether he can condemn the pagan in accordance with prin- 
 ciples of mercy as well as of justice, they do not consider. An illustration of what I mean 
 is afforded by the following quotation from Dr. Hodge in his commentary on this passage. 
 The italics are hi.s. " He (Paul) is speaking (in ver. 13) not of the method of justificaticm 
 for sinners, but of the principle on which all who are out of Christ are to be judged. They 
 shall be judged impartially, according to their works, and especially to their knowledge of 
 duty. On these principles no flesh living can be justified in the sight of God. The only 
 way, as he afterward teaches, to escape their application, is to confide in Christ, in virtue 
 of whose death God can be just and yet justify the ungodly who believe in him." Thus it 
 is assumed that the ])rinciple.s on which God judges pagans and Christians are essentially 
 tlifferent : the one are judged according to the law of justice — rewards proportioned to 
 merit ; the other are judgeil according to the princijdes of mercy — benefit adjusted to 
 need. 
 
 To me it seems clear that in this and the preceding chapter Paul aims to show that the 
 whole conception of God as one who deals with one portion of the human race on one prin- 
 ciple, and with another portion of till- human race on another principle — with the Jews 
 
102 E0MAN8. [Ch. II. 
 
 according to merit, and with the Gentiles according to needs, with those out of Christ 
 according to justice, and with those in Christ according to mercy — is erroneous. God is 
 not the Father of a portion of the human race, and the Moral Governor of the otlier por- 
 tion. He is the Father of the whole human race. The wliole human race is in its immaturity. 
 • Clearly, to apply the principle laid down by Mr. Herbert Spencer above, in apparently 
 entire unconsciousness of its moral and spiritual application, clearly if during tliis earthly 
 life, this life of childhood and immaturity, Ijenetits were proportioned by God to merits or 
 rewards to deserts, humanity would disappear in a generation. It could not survive justice. 
 But God does not confer benefits and rewards in proportion to desert and merit ; neither 
 upon Jew nor upon Gentile ; neither upon those in Christ, nor upon those out of Christ. 
 Justifying men is not judging them justly ; it is not judging them at all. It is rightening 
 them ; it is conferring benefits upon them in the spiritual realm ; it is bringing them into 
 fellowship with God, and making them participators of iiis righteousness. And this God 
 does alike for Jew and Gentile, for baptized and non-baptized, for elect and non-elect, for 
 those in Christ and those out of Christ ; inversely as the power or merit of the receiver. 
 He blesses men according to their needs, not according to their merits ; according to their 
 desires, aspirations, purposes, not according to their achievements. He deals not only with 
 all individuals in any one class, as the Jews believed, but also with all classes of men, on 
 the same principles, and those the principles of mercy, not the principles of justice. This 
 is the burden of Paul's argument in this passage, which, more clearly than any other in the 
 Bible, indicates the principles of God's dealing with the pagan world. Its significance, if 
 it be given its natural and plain meaning, is free from ambiguity. All the difficulties 
 which have arisen in its interpretation grow out of the assumption that justify is a forensic 
 term, that it signifies judging and acquitting, and out of the endeavor to harmonize this 
 passage with that assumption. It is but one of the many entanglements and perplexities 
 which have grown out of that one radical, and, as I believe, erroneous conception. These 
 difficulties being for tlie moment laid aside, the passage is not difficult of interpretation. 
 God is no respecter of persons. He knows nf) difference between Jew and Gentile, that is, 
 between men of different race, nationality, and religious belief and worship, — for this last was 
 the most fundamental and characteristic difference between the Jew and the Greek. It is 
 not according to these considerations that God will render to every man. Man is not 
 measured by his birth and circumstances, nor by his religious opinions and liturgical prac- 
 tices. If by patient continuance in well-doing he seeks for glory and honor and incorrup- 
 tion, God will answer the aspirations so interpreted, that is interpreted not by words, but 
 by deeds, and by deeds patiently continued and made a life practice ; and will give him 
 eternal life. If, on the other hand, he is self-seeking, and holds back the truth in unright- 
 eou.sness, and is not obedient to his conscience, but is obedient to his unrighteous impulses, 
 to him God will render wrath and indignation, tribulation and anguish. This is the natural 
 interpretation of the passage, that which lies upon its surface, and is in exact accordance 
 with, and is at once an interpretation of and is interpreted by what has gone before, 
 namely, that the wrath of God is manifested against men not for their ignorance of truth, 
 but for their disregard of and disobedience to it' Moreover, it is in accordance with the 
 teaching of tlie N. T. elsewhere which impliedly if not directly recognizes pagans as heirs 
 of eternal life ; as in Christ's declaration" that men shall come from all quarters of the globe, 
 and enter into the kingdom of God ; and in Peter's statement to Cornelius, " I perceive 
 that God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that feareth him and worketh 
 
 1 Oh. 1 : 18, 21. 2 Matt. S : 11 ; Luke 13 : 29, 30. 
 
Ch. II. j ROMANS. 103 
 
 righteousness is accepted witli him."' It accords cijually with the condition (if Eternal 
 Life hiid down by the O. T. prophets, a.s in Isaiah's (Unlaration of the Gospel of God's for- 
 giveness, " Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and k-t 
 him return unto the Lord, for he will have mercy upon him, and unto our God, for he will 
 abundantly pardon. '■ I believe, then, what Paul declares here to be in accordance with the 
 teaching of Scripture everywhere, and to be clear and explicit, this, namely, that God will 
 render to all men on the sjxme principles, whether Jew or Greek, whether Christian or 
 pagiin ; that in rendering to tliem he will be governed not ])y what they have done, but by 
 wliat they have desired and aimed to do ; by their aspirations and purposes rather than by 
 their achievements; that to those who have honestly sought for glory and honor and incor- 
 ruption, not by rites and ceremonies, but by patient ol)edience to the law of rigliteousness 
 as revealed to them, whether by conscience or by God's word, he will give eternal life ; to 
 those who have contended against the grace of God, and have di.sobeyed the truth and 
 obeyed unrighteousness, he will give wrath and anger, tribulation and anguish, by giving 
 them over to themselves, to their own reprobate minds, evil desires, and wicked ways. 
 
 Does any one ask. How then is the Christian any better off than tlie ])agan ? In doing 
 this he anticipates the question whicli Paul in the beginning of the next chapter answers : 
 " What advantage then hath the Jew I Much every way ; chiefly becau.se that to them 
 were committed the oracles of God." Christianity, whether given to the Jew by prophecy 
 or to the Cliristian by history, is an added privilege, an increased opportunity, a clearer 
 light, a fuller revelation of that mercy and love of God whose riches of goodness, and for- 
 bearance, and long-sufl^ering .should lead to repentance. Christ came not to add a new con- 
 dition to salvation, so that whereas before it was granted to repentance from sin and faith 
 in God, but now faith in Chri.st is added as a further condition ; lie came to open a way to 
 God, to reveal him to mankind, and to make the exercise of both repentance and faith 
 easier. The grace of God is afforded through Christ ; but it is not limited to those that 
 have a knowledge of Christ, or an understanding either of his Person or his Mi.ssion or 
 Work. To every man, whether Jew or Gentile, whether Christian or pagan, who by patient 
 continuance in well-doing seeks for glory and honor and incorruption, he will give eternal 
 life ; for he gives to all men, not according to their ability, knowledge, or power, not 
 according to their merit or desert, but according to their need, their aspiration, their 
 desire, their purpose, their readiness to receive his gifts, who walk in his way, and obey his 
 law of love. " For every one that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh, tindeth, and to 
 him that knocketh it shall be opened." 
 
 » Acts 10 : 34, 35. 
 
104 
 
 EOMANS. 
 
 [Cii. 11. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THEREFORE thou art inexcusable, O man, who- 
 soever Ukiu art that judgest : for wherein * thou 
 judgest another, tiiou condemnest thyself; for thou 
 that judgest doest the same things. 
 
 2 But we are sure that the judgment o( God is ac- 
 cording to truth, against them which commit such 
 things. 
 
 3 And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them 
 which do such things, and doest the same, that thou 
 shalt escape the judgment of God ? 
 
 a 2 Sam. 12 : 6, 7. 
 
 CH. 2. OUR .IDDGMENT OF OTHERS COMDEMKS OUR- 
 SKLVES.— God treasttees up goodness ; man tbeas- 
 xrRE3 UP ■wTtATH. — The standard or divine judg- 
 ment : God adjudges to us what we seek.— 
 Conduct and character, not creed and ceremo- 
 
 NIAX, ARE THE TESTS AT God'S JUDGMENT-BAR.— 
 
 Self-excusing is self-accusing. — Neither know- 
 ing THE TRUTH, NOB TEACHING THE TRUTH, BUT 
 DOING THE TRUTH IS RIGHTEOUSNESS. — RITUALISM 
 WITHOUT RIGHTEOUSNESS AND RIGHTEOUSNESS WITH- 
 OUT RITUALISM CONTRASTED. — THE LETTER KILL- 
 ETH ; THE SPIRIT MAKETH ALIVE. 
 
 The Apostle, in the sweep and current of his 
 condemnation, thus far has carried all his readers 
 with him ; his Jewish readers, for his condemna- 
 tion of pagan vices would appeal not merely to 
 the Jewish conscience, but also to Jewish preju- 
 dice ; to his pagan readers, because the sins in 
 paganism which he condemns are equally con- 
 demned, though not with a spiritual indignation 
 at all equal to that of the Apostle, by the best 
 writers among the Greeks and the Romans. 
 Whatever excuses the practicers of the immoral- 
 ities described might attempt to make, the 
 Christian believers, to whom this letter is ad- 
 dressed, would agree heartily with Paul that all 
 who do such things arc without excuse. Having 
 thus secured their co-operating conscience, he 
 suddenly turns it upon themselves with the 
 opening sentence of this chapter, a character- 
 istic of the surprises which Paul ever has in 
 store for his readers, the effect of which is lost 
 on us by our familiarity with his writings. He 
 has, in the preceding chapter, kindled the con- 
 science of his readers ; he now turns its full 
 blaze upon themselves. 
 
 1-4. Therefore thou art inexcusable, O 
 man, Avhosoever thou art, that judgest. 
 This is addressed not to the Jews alone, but 
 equally to every one who judges his neighbor ; 
 a Jewish, but by no means an exclusively Jewish 
 habit. He that judges his neighbor condemns him- 
 self. Thus Paul here gives a spiritual interpre- 
 tation to the declaration of Christ. "With what 
 judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged" (Matt. 
 7 : 2). The spirituality and individuality of its 
 application is well indicated by Jowett; "Hy- 
 pocrisy is almost always unconscious ; it draws 
 the veil over its own evil deeds, whUe it con- 
 demns those of others, not intentionally, but be- 
 cause human nature is strangely gifted with the 
 power of deceiving itself. It is popularly de- 
 scribed as ' pretending to be one thing, and doing. 
 
 thinking, or feeling another ; ' in fact, it is very 
 different. Nobody leads this sort of divided ex- 
 istence. A man does wrong, but he fori;ets it 
 again ; he sees the same fault in another, and 
 condemns it ; but no arrow of conscience reaches 
 him, no law of association suggests to him that 
 he has sinned too." Of this truth, the story of 
 Nathan and David affords a striking illustration 
 (2 Sam. 12 : 1-oj. This bolt of the Apostle is forged 
 to reach the conscience thus condemning its 
 neighbor and blind to itself ; and we wholly miss 
 its real significance if we turn it only against the 
 Jew and not also against ourselves. — And Ave 
 know that the judgment of God is ac- 
 cording to truth. We know this, firstly, 
 because our instinctive moral judgment assures 
 us that God can be no other than an equitable 
 judge, judging according to truth ; and, second'.}', 
 because this is clearly and repeatedly declared of 
 him in the O. T., see verso 11 and references 
 there. — And reckonest thou this, O man. 
 In his characteristic, dramatic method, Paul 
 argues with an imaginary opponent who stands 
 before him, and whose unexpressed objections 
 or most secret thoughts, he either answers or 
 expresses, in some cases allowing the mere ex- 
 pression to convey the answer. Such is the case 
 here. All willful, deliberate sin is based upon 
 either a secret, unexpressed, half-conscious ex- 
 pectation of escaping divine judgment, or else 
 upon a mere reckless and careless contempt of 
 (Jod and his law. The first fallacy has only to 
 be stated and so brought out into consciousness 
 in order to be condemned by him who entertains 
 and has lulled himself to security by it. "Do 
 you expect to escape the judgment of God? Do 
 you despise the riches of his goodness and for- 
 bearance and long-suifering? " The conscience 
 in neither case makes any response ; it is speech- 
 less. And Paul presses here the individual 
 responsibility, not upon the Jew, but upon 
 "everyone that judgeth." For illustration of 
 such despising of the goodness and forbearance 
 and long-suffering of God, see Acts 17 : 32 ; and 
 2 Pet. 3 : 3-7. Goodness, forbearance, and long- 
 suffering are not merely used as a rhetorical 
 i multiplication of words to add force to the sen- 
 tence. The N. T. rarely, if ever, uses words in 
 this way. Goodness is the service which God 
 renders to man ; forbearance is the holding one's 
 i self back, as a general holds back his forces be- 
 fore assault during a truce, pending negotiations 
 
('11. II.] 
 
 KOMANS. 
 
 105 
 
 4 (ir (lespisest thou the riches'' of his tjoodness and 
 forbearanct"' and iDiifTsufferinp; ;"' not knowing that 
 Ihc K<J<Jdness of God Icadclh ' tliee to repentance ? 
 
 5 But, after thy hardness and impenitent heart, 
 treasurest' up unto thyself wrath, against the day of 
 
 b ch. 9 : 23 c Isa. Kt : 7, etc d Jonah i : 2. 
 
 wrath, and revelation « of the righteous judgment of 
 God ; 
 
 6 Vvho'' will render to every man according to his 
 deeds : 
 
 .g Eccles. 12 ; H. . . .h Prov. 24 : 12 ; Matt. 16 : 27 : 
 
 of peace ; longsnfferivg is literaUy long-minded- 
 ness, slow to anger, passion, or excitement of 
 any kind. Comp. Ps. lO:* : S. — Not knowing. 
 Not merely not eoiisidering, but not kumrmg, not 
 taking cognizance of the fact. They that glorify 
 not God neither are thankful, (>h. \ -. •2\) do not 
 lalve into their minds the fact tliat the object of 
 the goodness by whicli they are .surrounded is to 
 lead them to rcpiutance. Their opi)ortunity for 
 knowledge is not here in question; they do not 
 know, because, to use a colloquial phrase, "it 
 never enters their head." — That the goodness 
 of God is leading thoe to repentance. 
 "Thi.s is its uitcnt and legitimate course which 
 thy blindness will prostitute." (A/ford.) 
 
 5, G. Bnt ill accordance with thy hard- 
 ness and impenitent Jieart. Ilanlness sig- 
 nifies resistance to divine, gracious influence ; 
 i)uj)C/iitcncc, persistence in evil. — Treasurest 
 up for thyself wrath. This wrath is the 
 wrath of God "against all ungodliness and un- 
 riiihteousness of men who hold back the truth 
 
 in unrighteousness" (ch. l : is. Ccmp. Col 3 : C; Rev. 
 
 t. : ir,). This wrath the sinner is represented as 
 himself treasuring up, by his resistance to all the 
 gracious influences which God by his goodness, 
 forbearance, and long-suffering brings to bear 
 upon him, and by his persistence in the ways of 
 unrighteousness. Men o;i earth are laying up 
 for tlieinselves treasures of love and treasures of 
 wrath ; treasures in heaven and treasures in hell. 
 .\nd this treasuring uj) of wrath is in accordance 
 with and in proportion to the resistance to God's 
 grace, and the power of self-will put forth in 
 persistence in sinful life (comp. vcr. I'j). — In the 
 day of wrath and revealing of the right- 
 eous judgment of (.od. This righteous judg- 
 ment of God is not yet revealed because of his 
 forbearance and long-suffering. Comp. Matt. 
 •J(; : :3()-41 ; 2 Pet. 8 : !) 11. The righteous judg- 
 ment of God is the judgment according to truth 
 (vir. •- 1, of a God who is no respecter of persons, 
 but will treat all alike (ver. n). — AVho will ren- 
 der to every man according to his 
 works. Quoted from Prov. 24 : 12. The lan- 
 guaire here, and in the Septuagint version there, 
 is nearly identical. That the judgment of God 
 is according to the works is the doctrine of both 
 the O. T. and the N. T. See, for example. Job 
 St : 11 ; Ps. 02 : 12 ; Prov. 12 : U ; Eccl. 12 : 14 ; 
 Jer. 17 : 10 ; Ezek. 7:3; 18 : 30 ; Matt. 7 : 23 ; 
 12 : 3fi, 37 ; 13 : 41 ; 25 : 31-46 ; 1 Cor. 3 : 13 ; 
 
 2 Cor. 5 : 10 ; Gal. 6 : 7, 8 ; Ephes. 0:8; Col. 3 : 
 25; 1 Pet. 1 : 17. In the light of these and kin- 
 dred passages it is impossible for the impartial 
 student of God"s word to doubt that God judges 
 men impartially according to their works, or 
 deeds, or fruit, or lives, all of which words are 
 nearlj' synonymous. He will neither treat the 
 innocent as though they were guilty, nor the 
 guilty as though they were innocent. "He will 
 by no means dear the guilty" (Exod. ?a : 7) is a 
 declaration by no means of his method of admin- 
 istration in O. T. times, but of his eternal nature. 
 It is the very object of Paul in his argument here 
 to enforce this truth as an eternal truth. Com- 
 mentators have found a difficulty in reconciling 
 Paul's declaration that God would render to 
 every man according to his works with his decla- 
 ration in ch. 3 : 20, "by the works of the law 
 shall no flesh be justified in his sight." I believe 
 that this is only one of the innumerable contra- 
 dictions and perplexities which have grown out 
 of the groundless and erroneous assumption that 
 justify is a forensic term, and that by the word 
 justified Paul means acquitted, or treated as in- 
 nocent. This makes Paul say in one sentence 
 that by the deeds of the law men are judged, 
 and in another, that by the deeds of the law they 
 can not be acquitted ; it further requires that the 
 interpreter should make Paul teach that God 
 judges the heathen by one standard, namely, by 
 his works, and the Christian by another stand- 
 ard, namely, by his faith ; while the stress of 
 Paul's argument rests in the fundamental truth 
 that God judges all men by the same standard, 
 and in the same manner; and finally it requires 
 us to believe that Paul teaches tiiat God judges 
 men not according to the reality, but according 
 to a legal fiction, by imputing to man Christ's 
 righteousness, and to Christ man's transgressions; 
 whereas the fundamental teaching of his whole 
 argument is, that God's judgment is according 
 to truth. Acquittal is one thing, justification or 
 rightening is another, (iod will by no means 
 clear or acquit the guilty, but he will righten 
 them ; he judges them according to their w'orks, 
 but he helps, i)ardous, saves, redeems, delivers 
 them according to their faith. He can not indeed 
 ju>tify until he has condemned ; for he can not be- 
 gin to set right until he discovers and recognizes 
 that the soul is wrong; nor can the soul be set 
 right till it has discovered and recognized that it 
 is wrong. When Christ said to the woman that 
 
106 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 [Ch. II. 
 
 7 To them who, by patient continuance in well doing, 
 seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal 
 Jife: 
 
 8 But unto them that are contentious,' and doJ not 
 obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation 
 and wrath, 
 
 9 Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man 
 that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gen- 
 tile; 
 
 10 But glory,* honour, and peace, to every man that 
 worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile : 
 
 r' there is no resp« 
 
 For' 
 
 I respect of persons with God. 
 
 i 1 Tim. 6 : 3, 4 ... .j 2 Thess. 1 : 
 
 .1 Deut. 10 : 17 ; 2 Chron. 19 : 
 
 Gal. 6 : 7, 8 ; 1 Pet. 1 : 17. 
 
 was a sinner, "Thy sins are forgiven," he con- 
 demned her life in the very sentence in which he 
 lifted off the sin from her. He pronounced her 
 a sinner as a means of releasing her from sin. 
 Putting Paul's declaration here and in ch. 3 : 
 20-26 together, we have this teaching. God will 
 judge every man according to his works, but he 
 will help every man to righteousness according 
 to his faith. Paul's argument here is almost ex- 
 actly parallel to that of Christ in the Sermon on 
 the Mount, where he first impresses the truth, 
 "Except your righteousness exceed the right- 
 eousness of the Scribes and Pharisees ye shall in 
 no case enter into the kingdom of heaven," and 
 this being asserted and emphasized, he goes on 
 to declare how this righteousness is to be at- 
 tained, namely, "Ask and it shall be given you ; 
 seek and ye shall find ; knock and it shall be 
 opened unto you." 
 
 T-11. To them that by patient contin- 
 uance in well-doing. In contrast with those 
 tliat seek divine approval by rites and ceremo- 
 nies. The only method of seeking which the 
 Scriptures recognize as legitimate is the method 
 of practical obedience as written in the con- 
 science and intei-preted by God's word. Comp. 
 Isaiah 1 : 16, 17 ; Matt. 7 : 21-23 ; Luke 3 : 8-14.— 
 Glory and honor and incorruption. Glory 
 is the glory of the divine image, the glory of the 
 children of God, the glory of whicli all men have 
 come short, and of which they are conscious they 
 have come short. This is the only glory which 
 Paul recognizes in or belonging to man, the 
 glorv of a divine manhood, of character. See 
 ch. 3 : 23 ; 5 : 2 ; 8 : 21 ; 1 Cor. 11 : 7 ; 2 Cor. 3 : 
 18. Honor, either from God or man, or both 
 
 (ch. 12:17; 2 Cor. 8 : 21 ; 13 : 7 ; Phil. 4 : 8, Rev. Vers.), Is rec- 
 ognized by the Apostle as a worthy aim of the 
 child of God. Incorruption may mean immor- 
 tality, but it is better to take it, with a wider 
 significance, to mean freedom from all that is 
 corrupt and corrupting. — Eternal life. This 
 life which is in God's Son, and is in us when we 
 liecome sons of God, God hath already given to 
 those that are his ; it reaches forward into the 
 endless future ; but it is not merely life in the 
 future ; it is spiritual life ; life in our God. (see 
 
 ch. .5 : 21 ; 6 : 23 ; Ephes. 2:6; 1 Tim. 6:12; 1 John 3:2; 
 
 :. : II, 1.3, 20.) — But to them that are conten- 
 tious. — Eather greedy, self-seeking. The word 
 "has a twofold ethical signification of (1) merce- 
 mary greed, and (2) desire of intrigue." — {Meyer.) 
 
 — And obey not the truth. This phrase is 
 equivalent to and interpreted by ch. 1 : 18, who 
 hold back the truth in unrighteousness. — But 
 obey unrighteousness. Their own unright- 
 eous impulses ; and through them Satan. They 
 are accordingly described by Christ as the chil- 
 dren of the devil, and by Paul as servants of sin 
 (John 8: 44; ch. 6 : 17). Are there then laws of 
 unrighteousness ? No. It is lawless ; he wlio is 
 obedient to it is like a community obedient to a 
 mob. — Wrath and indignation, tribula- 
 tion and anguish. This is interpreted by the 
 preceding chapter. God is here said to render 
 («.-ru()v()(ni(() wrath and anger, tribulation ar»d an- 
 guish ; there he is said to give over {nuqudtdiMui) 
 the person to uncleanness, dishonor, lusts, a 
 reprol»ate mind. Tliis is the wrath, and indigna- 
 tion, and tribulation, and anguish which is ren- 
 dered to every man whose life flows from self- 
 seeking, and who obeys unrighteousness and 
 becomes the servant of sin. Death and life are 
 both present conditions ; they both reach out 
 with indefinite and inconceivable consequences 
 into the future. — Upon every soul that 
 worketh evil. Not to every man that has 
 ever sinned ; however true it may be that every 
 sin merits the divine condemnation, that is not 
 the Apostle's teaching here. It is that the con- 
 demnation comes upon every man that gives 
 himself over to sin, to work out evU, as hinted at 
 here in the words self-seeking and obedience to un- 
 righteousness, and as more fully described in ch. 
 1 : 2i)-32. There is a difference between the two 
 Greek words rendered work in this verse. He 
 that ivorketh evil {xunoyd'^oiiui) is recognized as 
 accomplishing the evil, while he who vorketh 
 good {(oyu'^Duui) is recognized as simply aiming 
 to accomplish the good ; working for it ; whether 
 with result or not is not indicated (see 3Ieyer). — 
 For there is no respect of persons with 
 God. The expression is borrowed from the 
 Hebrew. See Job 13 : 10 ; Ps. 82 : 2. Comp. 
 Luke 20 : 21 ; Gal. 2:6. "It was one of the first 
 ideas the Israelite had of God that he was no 
 respecter of persons. Deut. 10 : 17 ; 2 Chron. 
 19 : 7 ; Job 31 : 19. But this disregard of per- 
 sons was only in his dealings with individuals of 
 the chosen peojile. St. Paul used the expression 
 in the wider sense of not making a difference of 
 jiersons between Jew and Gentile, circumcised 
 or unclrcumcised, bond or free, just as he 
 adapted the words 'there is one God' to the 
 
Cii. 11.] 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 12 Kor as many as have sinned without law, shall 
 also perish without law : and as many as have sinned 
 in the law, shall be judged by the law ; 
 
 I J (For'" not the nearers of the law are just before 
 God, but the doers of the law sliall be justified. 
 
 14 For when the Gentiles, which have not the law. 
 
 ik) by nature the things contained in the law, these, 
 having not the law, are a law" unto themselves : 
 
 15 VVhicli shew the work of the law written in their 
 hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and i/ieir 
 thoughts the mean while accusing, or else excusing, 
 one another ;) 
 
 James I : T2, 95 . 
 
 meaning of God, one and the same to all man- 
 kind, in eh. 3 : 30, and elsewhere. Nothing 
 could be less like the spirit of his countrymen 
 than this sense of the universal justice of God." 
 — {Jowett.) This widening application of O. T. 
 teaching is a characteristic of Paul's writing, and 
 the key to many of tlie otherwise enigmatical 
 passages in his epi>tles. 
 
 12- IG. For as many as have .sinned ivith- 
 out law. That is, have given themselves over 
 to sin, as described in the preceding cliapter, 
 not having had a written revelation of divine 
 law. — Shall also perish without law. Lit- 
 erally, dextroij theinxcli'ca. This self-destruction 
 or perishing is that described in the preceding 
 chapter. — And as many as have sinned un- 
 der the law. While in possession of the law. — 
 Shall be juda;ed by means of law. There 
 is a significance in the variation of the form of 
 the two renderings. Those without law destroy 
 themselves because they violate the law written 
 in their own consciences ; those having the law 
 are judged by the law whicli they have had and 
 have violated. Observe that thej" are judged not 
 6y, but by means of law ; hij (ix) God, bij means of 
 (Jdi) law. — For not the hearers of law are 
 righteous before God, but the doers of 
 law shall be righteous. Yet, presently, 
 Paul declares that by the works of the law sliall 
 no flesh be righteous in his siglit (d.. z -. no). The 
 explanation is to be found in the fact that Paul is 
 here speaking to Jews as Jews, and taking them 
 on their own ground. It is as if he said, The 
 possession of the law does not make you right- 
 eous UTiless you obey it. This subtle notion that, 
 somehow, the mere possession of a iirivilege 
 makes the possessor worthy must first be cleared 
 out of the way, before the Apostle can go on and 
 show that even obedience to that law does not 
 avail to transform character, or win standiuii: he- 
 lore God. — For when pagans, not having 
 law. Not merely not having tlie Mosaic law, 
 but not possessing any revealed law, any statutary 
 standard of right atid wrong. — l>o by nature 
 the things of the law. Beware of reading 
 this— If the Gentiles should do the things of the 
 law ; this is not what Paul says. He recognizes 
 that pagans may and son etimes do from natural 
 impulses obey the requirements of the law. 
 Cornelius is an illustration (acu lo : i, -2). Nor is 
 the moral law. Thou shalt not kill, steal, commit 
 adultery, etc., meant, as distinguished from the 
 
 law of reverence and obedience toward God. 
 Nor does Paul speak of a complete and perfect 
 obedience to the law, such as would make the 
 individual free from all need of pardon. The 
 obedience to the law here meant is precisely that 
 described in verses 6 and 7 ; and the passage 
 here is parallel to and interpreted by it. Deeds 
 of virtue are performed by pagans ; they are ia 
 so far meritorious hi God's sight ; and they bear 
 witness that he who performs them has a law 
 written in his own nalure to which he yields obe- 
 dience. — These, not having law, are a law 
 to themselves. The written law of God is hut 
 a revealing to man of that law before written in 
 his own nature. If it were not so, that law 
 would have no moral significance to him, and no 
 more hold ujion him than it has upon the brutes. 
 — Who shew the work of the law Avrit- 
 ten in their hearts. A parallel to the 
 writing on the tables of stone ; that has perished, 
 this abides eternally. This verse does not repeat 
 the argument of the preceding. It. addresses a 
 new one. The heathen attest that they also have 
 a law, first by doing its works, second by ac- 
 cusing or else excusing each other ; hut this they 
 could not do, if they did not recognize a hiw, a 
 rule, a standard by which to accuse or excuse. — 
 Their conscience bearing witness there- 
 with. The evidence of such a law written in 
 the hearts is to be found in the universal moral 
 consciousness, witnessed by the universal moral 
 judgment of mankind on themselves and on each 
 other. — And their thoughts accusing, or 
 else excusing one another. Of this accusing 
 and excusing or defending pagan literature 
 affords many examples. There can be no satire 
 or invective without the first, and no eulogy with- 
 out the second. An insight into this interior 
 judgment-throne set up hi every soul is iifforded 
 by Plato in the Republic, Book I : 331, " And 
 when one finds that the sum of his transgres- 
 sions is great, he will many a time, like a child, 
 start up in his sleep for fear, and he is filled with 
 dark forebodings. But he who is conscious of 
 no sin has in age a sweet hope which, as Pindar 
 says, is a kind nurse to him." — In that day. 
 The day of judgment; universal usage; in the 
 N. T. forbids any other interjiretation. — Ciod 
 shall .judge the secrets of men. For 
 before him our hearts are opiMi, so that all 
 this process of accusing and excusing he has 
 read (Hei.. 4 : 12, 13) ; and as we judge w^ shall 
 
lOS 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 [Ch. II. 
 
 i6 In the day when God shall judge the secrets" of 
 men, by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel.P 
 
 17 Behold, thoui art called a Jew, and restest in the 
 law, and makest thy boast of God, 
 
 18 And knovvest ^ his will, and approvest" the things 
 that are more excellent, being instructed outof the law ; 
 
 19 And art confident that thou thyself art a guide of 
 the blind, a light of them which are in darkness, 
 
 20 An instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, 
 which hast the form' of knowledge and of the truth 
 in the law : 
 
 o Lake 8: 17.. 
 
 . . .r Ps. 147 :19, 20. 
 
 . t 2 Tim. 1:13; 3:5. 
 
 be judged (Matt. 7 : i, 2); while our judgment is 
 itself the witness of our possession of a law writ- 
 ten in our hearts bj- which we should have 
 judged ourselves. — According to my Gos- 
 pel. The judgment is to Paul, as to the Psalm- 
 ist, a part of the Glad Tidings, Ps. 96 : 12, 13.— 
 Through Jesus Christ. Who is the judge of 
 mankind because he, as a man, has known sym- 
 pathetically our sorrows, weaknesses, and temp- 
 tations (Matt. 25 : 31 ; John 5 : 27 ; Acts 17 : 31). In the 
 
 abo\e translation I follow the textual reading of 
 Walcott and Hort. Scholars differ as to the con- 
 nection of the verse witli what precedes. Some 
 suppose that verses 14 and 15 are a parenthesis, 
 and that Paul declares that the doers of the law 
 shall he righteous in the day of judgment. 
 Others include also verse 13, and make his decla- 
 ration that as many as have sinned in the law 
 shall be judged by the law in the day of judg- 
 ment. StUl others carry the parenthesis back so 
 as to include verses 10 to 15, making Paul declare 
 that God would give to every one that doeth evil 
 tribulation and anguish in the day of judgment ; 
 and some even make all the chapter, from verse 
 5 to verse 15, parenthetical, thus making Paul 
 declare that men are treasuring up for them- 
 selves wrath to be repaid in the day of judg- 
 ment. This invention of i)arenthesis is a common 
 method of solving difficulties in Paul's writings, 
 but it is not very satisfactory. "A real paren- 
 thesis is the insertion of a clause, or of a thought, 
 between two parts of a sentence, the meaning of 
 which should be clearly l)roken off at its begin- 
 ning, and clearly resumed at its conclusion. The 
 parenthetical thought, as it is hurried over in the 
 discussion, should be really an after-thougiit, yet 
 necessary to the comprehension of the sentence. 
 If this be the trtie nature of the parenthesis, it 
 has no place here." — (Jowett.) In this, and in 
 many other jjassages tlie difficulty is obviated by 
 entering sympathetically into the high state of 
 ^-l)iritual exaltation in which Paul habitually 
 lived and wrote ; as one who ever looked upon 
 the things unseen and eternal. In this state of 
 exaltation he looks into the heart of the pagan ; 
 sees him sitting in judgment on himself and on 
 Ids neiglibor ; sees in this judgment a reflection 
 of God's own judgment who knows all the secrets 
 of these accusing and excusing thoughts; and 
 apparently breaks off, though really and spirit- 
 ually the connection is intimate, to speak of that 
 day when God shall judge all these secret 
 
 thoughts of men, and bring them forth to the 
 light of his throne. It is the climax of an intense 
 nature, Hving ever in the light of God and the 
 eternal world. 
 
 17-20. This appeal addressed to the Jew is 
 equally applicable to those in our own time who 
 are Christians in doctrine and form, but not in 
 life ; men who do not practice Christianity, who 
 hardly even make a pretense of living according 
 to the Golden Rule, or following the example of 
 Christ's life, but who secretly, if not openly, 
 pride themselves on not being heterodox, or 
 heathen, or deists, or atheists, or infidel. Paral- 
 lel with Paul's teaching here is that of Matt. 7 : 
 21, 22. Indeed, there is a wonderful parallel- 
 ism in doctrine between the teaching of this 
 chapter and that of the doctrine of the Ser- 
 mon on the Mount. Both set forth the con- 
 dition on which and the method by which 
 men may enter into the kingdom of God. 
 Both begin by emphasizing the truth that the 
 condition of admission is desire, not achieve- 
 ment; that the kingdom is a free gift of God's 
 grace, given to all who seek, opened to all who 
 knock ; both go on to warn the hearer against 
 imagining that to know the truth, to hold the 
 "form of sound words," or even to teach the 
 truth to others, to perform what is the recog- 
 nized religious service ia the church is an 
 evidence of that seeking which finds, that knock- 
 ing which gets an entrance ; both insist that 
 obedience to law is the only evidence of an earnest 
 seeking. In Matthew is the declaration, Every 
 one that asketh receiveth ; here, the declaration 
 God wUl render eternal life to them that seek for 
 glory, honor, and immortality by patient con- 
 tinuance in well-doing; in Matthew, the declara- 
 tion that not every one that saith to me. Lord, 
 Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven ; 
 that, on the contrary, "Many will saj- unto me 
 in that day. Lord, Lord, have we not jn-ophesied 
 in thy name, and in thy name have cast out 
 devils, and in thy name done man^^ wonderful 
 works " whom the Lord will reject and censure ; 
 here, the declaration that to be called a Jew, 
 and know his will, and be taught out of the law, 
 and to be a teacher of others, gives no assurance 
 of divine approbation. The kingdom of God is 
 not bestowed as a reward for service, but is a 
 free gift to need ; but it is bestowed only upon 
 those Avho attest the genuineness of their desire, 
 and their spiritual capacity to receive by the 
 
('II. 11.] 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 100 
 
 :i Thou " tlicrclDre which teachest another, teachest 
 thou not thyself? thou that prcachest a num should 
 not steal, dost thou steal ? 
 
 22 Thou that s;iyest a man should not commit adul- 
 tery, dost thou loinmit adultery ? thou that abhorrest 
 idols, dost thou commit sacrilege ? 
 
 23 Thoi! that niakest thy boast of the law, through 
 breaking the law, liishonourest thou God ? 
 
 .>4 Kor the name of God is blasphemed among the 
 Gentiles through you, as it is written.' 
 
 25 For circumcision verily profiteth, if thou keep the 
 law : but" if thou he a breaker of the law, thy circum- 
 cision is made uncircumcision. 
 
 26 Therefore if "^ the uncircumcision keep the riglit- 
 eousness of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be 
 counted for circumcision ? 
 
 27 And shall not uncircumcision which is by nature, 
 if it fultil the law, judge* tliue, who by the letter and 
 circumcision dost transgress the law ? 
 
 u Matt. 93 : 3, etc . . 
 
 Ezek. 36: 50, 23. . . .w Gal. 5:3. .. .x Acta 10 : 3-1, 35. . . .y Matt. 12 : 41, 42. 
 
 praciioal obedience of their lives. Observe the 
 elements of character, life, and cxi)erience which 
 Paul here declares to be insullicieut to secure 
 the divine approbation. He whom Paul declares 
 to be outcast is recognized and believes in revela- 
 tion, is instructed in. and is therefore an attend- 
 ant upon the means of religious instruction, a.p- 
 proves it, is a teacher of others, not only in doc- 
 trine, but also in morals, a corrector of them that 
 are foolish, as well as a U(;Jit to them that' are in 
 darkness, and a firm holder of the form of truth. 
 The form of knowledge and of truth is in contrast 
 with that spiritual knowledge which is spiritually 
 discerned, and that truth which is living, a truth 
 not merely in opinion but in life. 
 
 21-23. There has been some discussion among 
 commentators as to whether the Jew did rob 
 temples, and Alford cites Acts 10 : 37 to show 
 that they were sometimes charged with this 
 offense. It is, however, clearly not necessary 
 to suppose that the Jews whom Paul had in 
 mind were generally, or even frequently guilty 
 of the offenses described in these sentences, that 
 they were thieves, or adulterers, or robbers of 
 churches. Paul takes an extreme case to illus- 
 trate his position. No one imagines that the 
 thief is just because he preaches against thiev- 
 ing, or a robber of churches is less amenable to 
 condemnation because he professes to abhor 
 idols. The robbers of the Reformation period 
 were not less odious because they claimed to be 
 filled with a horror of Mariolatry. But there are 
 a great many persons who live in disregard of 
 God's law of love and justify themselves because 
 they are not atheists, or in disregard of Christ's 
 example of self-sacrificing service, and justify 
 tliemselves by the reflection that they belong to 
 liis church. Paul does not apply his argument. 
 He illustrates the principle by cases which can 
 not be questioned, and leaves his readers to 
 make the application for themselves, a natural 
 method with one of his intense nature and rapid 
 mental action. 
 
 21. The name of God is blasphemed. 
 Is evil sj)oken of. The inconsistent action of 
 professors of religion is the chief cause of the 
 disrepute of religion among unbelievers. This 
 has been true in all ages of the world, and is 
 true now. The weaknes.ses of Christians are the 
 
 strength of infidelity. The Reformation derived 
 its power from the lives of the Reformers; and 
 suffered its first greii,t reverses from their ex- 
 cesses and divisions. — As it is written. The 
 quotation is supposed to be from Isaiah 52 : o, 
 where the prophet declares that the Lord's name 
 is blasphemed because of the suffering by his 
 people from the oppressions of the heathen. 
 The meaning, then, must be. As in Isaiah's time 
 God's name was blasphemed because of what 
 you suffered, so now it is blasphemed because of 
 what you do. I think it much better to look 
 elsewhere for O. T. references to justify this 
 reference. Paul quotes nothing. He simply refers 
 in a general way to the O. T. Scripture as sus- 
 taining the doctrine which he is enforcing, tliat 
 mere possession of religious principle, including 
 revealed truth and law, without living according 
 to that truth and in obedience to that "law, is of 
 no value in God's sight ; that to possess those 
 principles and not to live according to them is to 
 I^rofane his name ; a doctrine so written all 
 through the O. T. that he does not think it neces- 
 sary to cite any particular i)assage. For illus- 
 trative passages see Ndi. 5:1); Ezek. ;;(> : 21, 2o. 
 25-20. For circumcision verily profiteth 
 if, etc. Circumcision, like baptism, was the 
 sign of the covenant. But a covenant is of value 
 only as it is kept. — Thy circumcision is be- 
 come uncircumcision. By breach of cove- 
 nant it is destroyed, and beeomo^ as though it 
 were not. — If therefore the uucircumcised 
 keep the ordinances of the law. Not an 
 impossible supposition. The force of Paul's 
 arguinentis entirely destroyed if for his language 
 here we substitute the words; If an uncircum- 
 cised person could be imagined to keep the ordi- 
 nances of the law his uncircumcision would be 
 reckoned for circumcision. Paul is not talking 
 about supposititious or imaginary cases ; he is too 
 thoroughly in earnest, too real in all his discus- 
 sions to do that. He is urging on the Romans 
 that a righteous pagan is a child of God and that 
 an unrighteous Jew is not. The kind of keep- 
 ing the law to which he refers is such as was exhib- 
 ited by Cornelius (Acts lo : 1-4) or the Centurion 
 (Luke 7 : a-.')). This is Paul's reiteration of the 
 doctrine of the old Hebrew prophets that "to 
 obey is better than sacrifice " (1 Sam. is : 22). — Shall 
 
110 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 [Ch. II. 
 
 28 For he " is not a Jew, which is one outwardly ; 
 neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the 
 flesh : 
 
 29 But he is a Jew. which is one inwardly ; and cir- 
 cumcision is that of the heart. * in the spirit, and not in 
 the letter ; wnose praise '' is not of men, but of God. 
 
 ich. 9 : 6, 7 ; Matt. .1:9; John 8 : 39 ; Gal. fi : 15 : Rev. 
 
 I Deut. 10 : 16 ; 30 : 6 ; Jer. 4:4; Phil. 3:3; Col. 2 : 11 .... b 2 Cor. 10 : 18 
 
 not the uncircumcised * * * jndge 
 
 thee. Rise up in judgment against thee. Comp. 
 Matt. 12:41, 42. — He is not a Jcav which is 
 one outwardly * * * but he is a Jew 
 
 which is one inwardly. The negative part 
 of this statement we now generally accept ; that 
 the mere form is valueless ; but the corollary is 
 indissolubly connected with it, namely, that the 
 mere form is never essential ; if one may not be 
 a child of God with it, lie may be a child of God 
 without it. There is a profit in the outward ;ind 
 apparent ; Imt only as it corresponds to the in- 
 ward and invisible. The invisible is the real ; the 
 visible is the shadow. The whole is interpreted 
 by the next sentence : Whose praise is not of 
 men, but of God. Comp. John 1 :47 ; 2 Cor. 
 3:6; Gal. 6 : 1(5. The truth Paul here expresses 
 has passed into the experience of the Christian 
 in the common use of the Pauhue phrase as 
 description of God's children, "The Israel of 
 God." 
 
 The principle involved in Paul's argument in 
 these verses is well expressed by Calvin. "Every- 
 thing is below its end and subordinate to it. 
 Circumcision looks to the law and therefore must 
 be inferior to it ; it is thus a greater thing to 
 keep the law than cii'cumcision which was for its 
 sake instituted. It hence follows that the un- 
 circumcised, provided he keeps the law, far excels 
 the Jew with his barren and unprofitable circum- 
 cision, if he be a transgressor of the law ; and 
 though he is by nature polluted, he shall yet 
 be so sanctified by keeping the law that uncir- 
 cumcision shall be imputed to him for circum- 
 cision." With circumcision in itself we have 
 no longer any concern. By universal consent 
 among all Christian people it has been suffered 
 to lapse. But the principles involved in Paul's 
 argument are as applicable to our time as to his. 
 It must be remembered that circumcision was 
 the distinguishing ritualistic mark of the Jew ; 
 it introduced him to and made him one of the 
 people of God. To be uncircumcised was to be 
 outside the covenant mercies of God. The 
 principle which Paul here lays down involves two 
 
 very important principles. I. No ritual is of the 
 essence of the Christian religion. One may sub- 
 mit to the ritual and be no gainer ; he may be 
 without it and yet have all its advantages reck- 
 oned to him. The end of all law is love out of 
 a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of 
 faith unfeigned (i Tim. i :6). If the ritual lead on. 
 to this it is profitable ; if it does not lead on to 
 this it is not profitable. It jjrofiteth nothing. 
 1 Cor. 7 : 19 ; Gal. 5:0; 6 : 15. II. No ritual can 
 confer grace. It may be a means of grace ; a 
 method by which new life may be quickened in 
 the heart. But if that life is in fact not quick- 
 ened, the ceremonial is valueless. There is some 
 question whether any modern church was organ- 
 ized by God ; none that the ancient Jewish 
 church was so organized ; some question whether 
 baptism was commanded by Christ as a rite of 
 initiation into his church ; none that circum- 
 cision was commanded by God as a rite of ad- 
 mission into the Jewish church. But circum- 
 cision so commanded is declared by Paul to be 
 profitable only to those who keep the law of 
 which it is a symbol, and not essential to those 
 who do. The application of the principle to our 
 own time is admirably put by Jowett. " This is 
 one of that class of questions which in ancient 
 as well as in modern times is seldom brought to 
 the distinct issue of the Apostle. The Rabbi 
 would have hesitated to say that a wicked Jew 
 had a part in the Messiah's kingdom, or that a 
 virtuous heathen was necessarily excluded from 
 it. The Christian, in modern times at least, 
 would shrink from approving that an unbaptized 
 infant is a child of wrath, or even that the bap- 
 tized could hardly, if in any case, fail of salva- 
 tion at the last. But both would gladly, if 
 possible, turn away from the inquiry ; they that 
 wish to be allowed to hold premises without fol- 
 lowing them to their conclusions ; to take issue 
 upon a word, and not to determine the point of 
 morality or justice. This is what the Apostle 
 has not done. To him circumcision became un- 
 circumcision if it transgressed the law. Uncir- 
 cumcision became circumcision if it kept the law." 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 .1 rSTl KICATIOX HV FAITH 
 
 What adyantage then hath the Jew ? or what is the profit of circumcision f Much every 
 way: lirst of all, that they wore intniHtcd wiili the oracles of God. For what if some were 
 without faith ? shall their want of faith make of none effect the faithfulness of God ? 'God 
 forhid ; yea. let God he found true, but every man a liar ; as it is written, 
 
 That thou mightest be justified in thy words, 
 
 And mightest prevail when thou comest into judgement. 
 But if our unrighteousness commendeth the righteousness of God, wliat shall we say 1 Is God 
 unrighteous who visiteth with wrath ? (I speak after the manner of men.) God forbid: for 
 then how shall God judge the world ? -But if the truth of God through my lie abounded unto 
 his glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner ? and why not (as we be slanderously reported, 
 and as some attirm that we say\ Let us do evil, that good may come ? whose condemnation is 
 
 jOBt. 
 
 What then f ^are we in worse case* than they ? No, in no wise : for we before laid to the 
 charge of both Jews and Greeks, that they are all under sin ; as it is WTitten, 
 
 Tliere is none righteous, no not one ; 
 
 There is none that understandeth, 
 
 There is none that seeketh after God ; 
 
 They have all turned aside, they are together become unprofitable ; 
 
 There is none that doeth good, no, not so much as one : 
 
 Their throat is an open sepulchre ; 
 
 With their tongues they have used deceit : 
 
 The poison of asps is under their lips : 
 
 Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness : 
 
 Their feet are swift to shed blood ; 
 
 Destruction and misery are in their w;ivs : 
 
 And the way of peace have they not known : 
 
 There is no fear of God before their eyes. 
 Now we know tliat what things soever the law saith, it speaketh to them that are under 
 the law ; that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may be brought under the judge- 
 ment of God : because 'by nhe works of the law shall no flesh be "justified in his sight : for 
 'through the law co/neth the knowledge of sin.t But now apart from the law a righteousness 
 of God hath been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets ; even the right- 
 eousness of God through faith "in Jesus Christ unto all" them that believe ; for there is no 
 distinction ; for all have sinned,J and fall short of the glory of God ; being justified freely by 
 his giace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus : whom God '"set forth§ "to 6e a pro- 
 pitiation, through '-'faith, by his blood, || to shew his righteousness, because of the passing over 
 of the sins done aforetime, in the forbearance of God ; for the shewing, I say, of his righteous- 
 ness at this present season : that he might himself be '^just, and the "justifler of him that 
 '•hath faith "in Jesus. Where then is the glorying ? It is excluded. By what manner of law ? 
 of works ? Nay : but by a law of faith. ' 'We reckon therefore that a man is justified by faith 
 apart from 'the works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only ? is he not the God of Gen- 
 tiles also ? Yea, of Gentiles also : if so be that God is one, and he shall justify the circumcision 
 "by faith, and the uncircumcision '"through faith. Bo we then make ' 'the law of none effect 
 '"through faith ? God forbid : nay, we establish ' 'the law.l 
 
 1 Or. Be it not 90 : 
 and so elsewhere. 
 
 3 Or, do we excuse 
 ourselves t 
 
 » For in *' worse 
 case " Teaf\ " bet- 
 ter '' and omit the 
 marg. — Am. Com. 
 
 i Gr. out of, 
 
 5 Or, works of law. 
 
 6 Or, accounted 
 righ*-eous. 
 
 7 Or, through law. 
 t Begin a para- 
 graph. — Am. Com. 
 
 8 Or, of. 
 
 9 Some ancient au- 
 thorities add and 
 upon all. 
 
 X Have sinned add 
 marg. Gr. sinned. 
 — Am. Com. 
 
 10 Or, purposed. 
 
 § " Set forth " omit 
 10 (purposed). — 
 Am. Com. 
 
 11 Or, to be propi- 
 tiatory. 
 
 12 Or, faith in hit 
 blood. 
 
 II For " by his 
 blood " read •' in 
 his blood," re- 
 taining comma 
 after ''faith " and 
 omit marg. 12. — 
 Am. Com. 
 
 13 Sve ch. ii. 13, 
 margin. 
 
 14 Gr. is of faith. 
 
 loManj ancient au- 
 thorities read For 
 we reckon. 
 
 16 Or. through the 
 faith. 
 
 17 Or, law. 
 
 ^ Make a paragraph 
 of verse 31. — Am. 
 Com. 
 
 In lhi.s chapter Paul coiuplete.>< the general course of his argument, showing that the 
 Jew witli a written law can no more be made acceptable to God by strenuous endeavors ti> 
 conform liis life externally to that law, than can the pagan by endeavoring to conform to the 
 unwritten law in his con.science. Tliis argument is introduced by one of the apostle's 
 cliaracteristicjilly dramatic passages (verses 1-8). Paul is, as it were, .stijpped in his gen- 
 eral course of argument by an imaginary objector, and liolds a dialogue with him. My 
 interpretation of this dialogue (verses 1-8), the grounds of wliich I have given in the notes. 
 
112 ROMANS. [Ch. III. 
 
 differs in some important particulars, cliietly in its interpretation of the words faith and 
 truth, from that given ordinarily by commentators. Let the reader imagine Paul in a 
 white heat of mental and spiritual fervor, pacing the room, dictating to an amanuensis, his 
 heart full of the great truths with which he is surcharged, the justice and equity of God, 
 who is the Father of the whole human race, and who deals with all his children, Jew and 
 Gentile, on the same principle of love and mercy. Suddenly an imaginary objector appears 
 before him. The objector is not merely an abstract one. With his poetic nature, and in his 
 state of exaltation, Paul has the living objector before him, and a colloquy ensues whicli we 
 may put into the form of a dialogue, thus : 
 
 Objector. You say that God deals with Jew and Gentile on precisely the same prin- 
 ciples ; that he shows the same favor to Gentile as to Jew. What advantage then is there 
 in being a Jew ? What profit is there in that rite of circumcision whicli we have been 
 taught to believe makes us in a special manner the children of God I 
 
 Paul. To the Jews is intrusted the divine revelation, through them is to be made 
 known to the world the Gospel of God's love, which is toward all his creatures, but is not 
 known or recognized by all. And now let me ask you a question. Do you suppose that 
 the Jew's inability to perceive repentance and faith in a pagan, will make of no avail God's 
 ability to perceive them 1 By no means. God will be true in his judgment of mankind 
 though all men judge falsely of each other. Even our own sacred poet David declares that 
 he was allowed to fall into open sin in order that God's judgment and condemnation of his 
 secret sinfulness might be justified, and thus, when men ventured to call God in question 
 for being too severe in his judgment of human nature, they might be compelled to 
 acknowledge the righteousness of his condemnation. 
 
 Objector (shifting his ground). If our unrighteousness commends God's righteousness, 
 why does he condemn us 1 You charge him with unrighteousness in visiting with wrath 
 what really inures to his glory. 
 
 Paul (indignantly). God unrighteous ! He that judges the world, a false judge ! 
 
 Objector (persistently). But if my false life makes clear to others God's truth in judg- 
 ment, why am I judged to be a sinner ? 
 
 Paul. Do you not see on what your objection is based I It is on the false and perni- 
 cious maxim that we may do e\'il that good may come, since you palliate man's sin becaxise 
 God brings out of it a witness to his own truth and righteousness. 
 
 With this Paul leaves the objector silenced, and proceeds as though there had been no 
 interruption. 
 
 This objector disposed of, Paul calls from the 0. T. a variety of its testimonies to the 
 ■character of the Jew, who was under the law, clinches the argument by the unanswerable 
 statement that whatsoever things the law saith, it saith to those who are under the law, 
 and then (verses 21-26) sums up in a form so compact as to be enigmatical, what is the 
 burden of all his Epistles, his doctrine of justification by faith. This doctrine may, perhaps, 
 be best put before the reader by a paraphrase ; but a few words of preliminary explanation 
 are necessary to make the paraphrase clear. 
 
 The object of Paul's life was to build up character ; his method was to bring souls into 
 direct, sympathetic relations with God. The heart of his theology is expressed in two 
 words, righteousness and faith. Eighteousness is Paul's word for character ; and it is a great 
 deal better word than any of the modem substitutes. It is better than manhood, which 
 indicates man as the standard ; better than character, which may be either good or bad. 
 Eighteousness is character built upon right lines, square to the true standard : the righteous- 
 ness of God is character squared to God's ideal, as it exists in himself, as it was manifested 
 
Ch. III.] ' KOMANS. 113 
 
 in Ji'.siis Christ his only hegotteti Son, as it is purposed by him for all his vvillin<^ cliildren. 
 Faith is Paul's word for the power of seeing and living by the invisible. He describes it 
 as looking at the things which are not seen ; he, or one of his immediate pupils, defines it 
 as "the evidence of things unseen." It is faith alone, therefore, which can appreciate 
 righteousness ; faith alone which can receive directly and immediately the symi^athetic 
 iuHuence of a wholly unseen God. Men are saved when they have the righteousness of 
 God wnnight in them ; they are in the way of stdvation when they have begun to work out 
 in themselves the right lines of character, as exemplified in the life of his Son ; it is btj 
 faith they are saved, because the way to work out these right lines of character is to enter 
 into sympathetic relations with God and live in the inspiring influence of his perpetual 
 presence. We have faith in the sufferings of the Son of God when we apprehend sin as he 
 apprehended it, and it is in some true sense a burden and a grief to us as it was to him. 
 
 That men are not righteous ; that they can not make themselves so Ijy careful and con- 
 scientious obedience to rules and statutes, whether of Moses or Gamaliel ; that if they 
 desire to be righteous they need do nothing whatever to secure God's fatherly sympathy in 
 the endeavor to become so, but have only to accept his personal helpfulness, receive it, trust 
 in it ; that so trusting in it, they are certain under his inspiration to eventually attain the 
 righteousness which seems so beyond their reach ; that this possibility is the same for Jew 
 and for J)agan, for the people of God and for the outcast nations of the earth ; and that, 
 having once entered upon this endeavor, sustained by the personal sympathy and inspira- 
 tion of a God ever present in human experience, they are freed from all fears and anxieties 
 and may live in the perfect liberty of children in a household of love : this is the gist of 
 Paul's Epistle to the Romans, and this is expressed ydth enigmatic compactness in verses 
 21-26 of this chapter. The two interpretations given to these verses indicate clearly the 
 ra<lical difference between the two schools of interpretation. The one school hold that God's 
 righteousness is an obstacle to the forgiveness of sins ; that this obstacle must be somehow 
 taken out of the way ; that before the sins can be forgiven this righteousness or justice of 
 Go<I must be satisfied by a i>unishnient or its equivalent ; and that the sacrifice of Christ is 
 the equivalent which enables God to righten or justify the believer in Jesus in .spite of the 
 demands which otherwise his righteousness or justice wouhl make on him for the sinner's 
 punishment : Thus, for example, Dr. Shedd, in his Commentary on Romans : "just and 
 yet the justifier ; implying that there is a natural incompatibility between the two things. 
 * * * St. Paul implies that if God had justified the ungodly without a propitiation, he 
 Avould not have been just." The other school hold that God's righteousness is the instru- 
 ment or means, or rather the imwer, by which the world is to he rightened ; that justice and 
 mercy are only different inflections of love, and that love is righteousness ; that it is by the 
 impartation of his own righteousness to those who are the willing recipients of his influence, 
 by faith apprehending and receiving it, God sets sinful men right, both in themselves and 
 in their relations to him ; that the object of the sacrifice of Christ, in suffering for the sin 
 of the world, is to show forth the long .suffering of a God who is from eternity the world's 
 Sin-bearer and Burden-ljearer ; and that through faith in his self-sacrificing love we are 
 Ijrought into spiritual oneness with him, who by the life, suflerings, and death of Christ is 
 manifested to our spiritual apprehension as possessing that kind of righteousness which 
 rightens all tho.se who by faith welcome and receive him. The interpretation of the Pauline 
 Epistles, and so the whole formulated Chri-stian theology, will depend largely upon which 
 of these keys the reader accepts and uses. The former is almost uniformly used in the 
 theological treatises and the commentaries : the latter largely in the hymnology and the 
 books of Christian experience. I believe the latter furnishes the true interiiretation. 
 
114 KOMANS. [Ch. III. 
 
 Employing this key, as I have done in the notes in detail, this passage, which contains in a 
 seed form the whole Pauline theology, may be paraplirased as follows. A contirniation of 
 this interpretation is afforded in the jjarallel passages indicated in the notes. 
 
 In our time, by methods other than those of the law, we see God's true character 
 manifested, albeit the character is the same as that which was less clearly set forth by the 
 law and the prophets ; but to us the true character of God is revealed in the person of his 
 Son, the Messiah, tyjjified in the law and foretold by the prophets, but in these later days 
 come vipon earth, the express image of God's person, and the brightness of his glory ; not 
 understood by the Jews to whom he came, but revealed unto all those who have the p(jwer 
 of spiritual apprehension, whether Jews or Greeks ; for God makes no difference between 
 them in his dealings with them. For all men have sinned, as we have already shown, both 
 Jew and Gentile, and all fall short of that glorious image in which God made man, for 
 which God destines man, and of which God has given an example in the man Christ Jesus. 
 For we are Tightened freely by God's gift of himself, imparted to las ; we are bondmen 
 to sin, but we are purchased from our master by Christ Jesus, whom God hath set forth 
 before all the world as a Mercy-Seat, in whom God and man come into fellowship and one- 
 ness ; but this is only by spiritually apprehending and appreciating his self-sacrifice, and 
 so entering into and becoming participators with him in his cross, whom God hath 
 appointed to show that his apparent indifference to the sins of the world in its past history 
 was due, not to indifference, but to forbearance and the patient waiting of love, and so far 
 from being inconsistent with his righteousness was itself the fruit of his righteousness ; to 
 show also his righteousness in the provision which, in these later days of a Gospel dispen- 
 sation, he has made for the deliverance of man from sin ; that thus he might be known to 
 possess that kind of righteousness which rightens all those who spiritually ap^jrehend and 
 unite themselves to his Son Jesus Christ. 
 
C'li. III.] 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 115 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 WHAT advantage then hath the Jew? or what 
 profit is there of circumcision ? 
 2 Much every way: chiefly, because that unto 
 them " were committeti the oracles ot God. 
 
 3 For what, if some "' did not believe ? shall their 
 unbelief make the faith of God without effect? 
 
 ^ God forbid ; yea, let God be true, but ever>' man 
 a liar ; as it is written,'' That thou inightest be justified 
 in thy sayings, and miglitest overcome when thou art 
 judged. 
 
 a Deut. 4 : 7, 8 b ch. 10 : 16 ; Heb. 4 : S c Ps. SI : 4. 
 
 Ch. 3. THK PIVIXK MKTHOD OF .lUSTIFICATION.— 
 
 TUE ADVANTAGE OF THE CHRISTIAN OTEK THE PAGAN ; 
 ENTUIISTKD WITH A GREAT TRUST.— GoD SEES ; MAN 
 IS BLIND.— A GOOD END NEVER JUSTIFIES AN EVIL 
 MEANS. The biblical indictment op HUMANITY.— 
 
 Doing Ji'STLT does not justify. — God's righteous- 
 ness: IT IS MANIFESTED IN CHRIST ; 19 RFCEIVED BY 
 FAITU ; IS CONFERRED ON ALL BELIEVTIRS ; FURNISHES 
 FREELY REDEMPTION THROUGH DIVINE SUFFERING 
 AND SACRIFICE. — GOD's RIGHTEOUSNESS RIGHTENS 
 THE UNRIGHTEOUS. — CHRIST DESTROYS NOT BUT FUL- 
 FILLS TUE LAW. 
 
 1-4. Verses 1-8 are a digression in Paul's 
 argument, a discussion with an imaginary ob- 
 jector. — What advantasrc then hath the 
 Jew ? or what profit is tliere of circum- 
 cision? The modern parallel to this question 
 is the one sometimes put when the modern fol- 
 lowi-r of Paul asserts that the grace of God is 
 untp all his children, pagan as well as Christian, 
 who repent of their sins, and seek his forgive- 
 ness and aid, however ignorantly and blindly. 
 ^Vhat advantage then has the Christian over the 
 pagan world '? and why should Christendom 
 send missionaries to carry the gospel to the 
 pagans? To this objection to the doctrine of the 
 universality of God's grace, as common in our 
 day as in Paul's, though different in form, Paul 
 replies. — 3Iuch every way. In every direc- 
 tion ; in whatever way you look at the subject. — 
 First of all. Not clnefly, as in the Old Ver- 
 sion. Paul purposes to go on and assign several 
 re;isons, but his mind soon becomes aljsorbcd 
 wit!i the first reason, and with further objections 
 which he proceeds to state and answer, and lie 
 forgets his original design. This firstly has no 
 secondly. — Because they were entrusted 
 with the oracles of God. Alford sugg( sts 
 th .t these words are a reminiscence of Stephen 
 in -Vets 7 : ;iS. It is certain that much of Paul's 
 theologj- was suggested by and providentially 
 derived from the last speech of Stephen, whicli 
 was one of the means whi( h led to Paul's con- 
 version. The thought here and there is identical. 
 The advantage which Paul emphasizes is not that 
 the Jews jioxsesx, but that they are entnislcd with 
 tlie oracles of God. Revilation was entrusted to 
 tlieir keejiing that through it, and through them 
 as its custodians, the world might be brought to 
 God. This idea is elaborated by tlie apostle in 
 chapters ten and eleven. The advantage which 
 Christendom jjossesses over luiganisin is that to 
 it has been entrusted the Glad Tidings which is 
 
 for the salvation of the whole human race ; and 
 it is thus made a co-worker with (iod in the re- 
 demption of the race. — For what ? That is, 
 what shall we saj'. This broken interrogatory is 
 in the nature of an ejaculation, and prepares for 
 the inquiry which follows — If some were 
 without faith ? Not, did not beiiiir, as ren- 
 dered in the Old Version. Faith is never used 
 by Paul as equivalent to believe ; it never sig- 
 nifies an intellectual act. — Shall their want of 
 faith, not unbelief — 3Iake of none ellect 
 the faith of (nJod ? Vo< tlufaitlifidness of God. 
 Paul does not usi' the word in a doulile sense, 
 nor does he merely play upon words for a rhe- 
 torical effect. Confusion is eonstantl}' introduced 
 into the writings of Paul by his interpreters, by 
 imputing to him either a careless use of words, 
 or a mere rhetorical j)laying upon them. Faith 
 {nlati;) never means in Paul's use of it fidelity 
 to a word or a promise. It always signifies a 
 power of spiritual percejition, and in both clauses 
 of the sentence here it is to have that priinaiy 
 meanUig given to it. Paul does not ask, Shall 
 man's want of faith in God cancel Gcd's fidelity 
 to his promises'? Paul is not basing his argu- 
 ment on any promise of God ; nor has he quoted 
 or referred to any jM'omise of God to the Gen- 
 tiles, whose inclusion in the Gospel he is arguing. 
 His question is this: Shall the Jews' failure to 
 perceive and welcome the spiritual life of God 
 work against and make unfruitful God's per- 
 ception of spiritual (jualities in his Gentile 
 childrtn, who are seeking for glory and honor 
 and hicorruptif)n by ])atient continuance in well 
 doing'? God deals with all his children on the 
 plane of the interior and the spiritual. And 
 wherever there is a spiritual desire he perceives 
 it; and that perception of faith in his children 
 shall not be destroyed because some otheis of 
 his children are lacking in the power to ])erceive 
 the invisible and the eternal, and to lay hold 
 upon it. — (iod forbid. This phrase, which 
 occurs fourteen times in both versions of the 
 N. T. in Paul's Ejnstles, is a very liberal, and 
 in my estimation, a very doubtful translation. 
 It appears to give the sanction of Paul's example 
 to the use of God's name in a mere negative 
 ej:iculation. In the original there is nothing of 
 the kind hinted at. What Paul says is. Let not 
 that be. This i)hr:ise is so translated in the 
 Latin and German versions f)f the N. T. But 
 every English version has followed Wyekliffe in 
 
116 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 [Ch. III. 
 
 5 But if our unrighteousness commend the right- 
 eousness of God, what shall we say ? Is God unright- 
 eous, who taketh vengeance ? (I speak as a man) 
 
 6 God forbid : for then how "i shall God judge the 
 world ? 
 
 7 For if the truth of God hath more abounded 
 
 through my lie unto his glory, why yet am I also 
 judged as a sinner ? 
 
 8 And not rather, (as we be slanderously reported, 
 and as some affirm that we say,) Let us " do evil, that 
 good may come ? whose damnation is just. 
 
 .« ch. 6 : 1, 15. 
 
 substituting the phrase, God forbid, for the pur- 
 pose of adding intensity to the negative, for 
 which purpose not only literal accuracy has been 
 sacrificed, but Paul's example has been made, 
 without his authority, to sanction a very doubt- 
 ful use of God's name. — Yea, let God be 
 true, but every man a liar. Not true to 
 his promises or words, though every man be 
 false to his ; a meaning which gives to this sen- 
 tence no connection with what either precedes 
 or follows it. In the context, both antecedent 
 and consequent, Paul is speaking of God as a 
 judge. The meaning here then is, Let God be 
 true in his judgment of men though every man 
 be false ; Let God's judgment be according to 
 the inward spiritual reality, though all men 
 judge according to appearance and circum- 
 stance. — As it is written. The quotation is 
 from Ps. 51 : 4, written by David after Nathan's 
 condemnation of his adultery and murder. The 
 whole verse is as follows: "Against thee, thee 
 only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy 
 sight ; that thou mightest be justified when thou 
 speakest, and be clear when thou judgest." The 
 meaning appears to be, I have been permitted to 
 fall into this overt sin, this manifestation of that 
 corrupt nature which was always in me, that thy 
 judgment condemning me as guilty, in contrast 
 with my own self-commendation, and the praise 
 of my fellow-men, might be seen to be just and 
 true. David there, as Paul here, illustrates such 
 declarations as "God is no respecter of per- 
 sons ; " and "The Lord seeth not as man seeth ; 
 for man looketh on the outward appearance, but 
 the Lord looketh on the heart." 
 
 5-8. This objection being disposed of, the 
 imaginary objector starts a new one. The 
 dialogue continues. The whole passage is dra- 
 matic in form and spirit. — But if our un- 
 righteousness commends the righteous- 
 ness of God. If it be true, as David seems to 
 say, that the overt sin is permitted that God 
 may be justified in his condemnation of the sin- 
 ner, if thus his sin redounds to the glory of God, 
 is it not unjust for God to visit wrath upon the 
 sinner ? Paul has before him here the very pro- 
 foundest problem in human thought and life, the 
 relation of God to the fact of human sin. Paul 
 answers it by a simple reassertion of the justice 
 of God. This is with him a moral axiom ; not to 
 be questioned. Every thing rests upon this as its 
 foundation. He even halts to apologize for 
 
 giving utterance to an objection which impugns 
 the righteousness and goodness of God. — Then 
 how shall God judge the world ? The 
 
 doctrine of a divine judgment is well nigh uni- 
 versal, in pagan as well as Christian lands. This 
 doctrine assumes the justice of the judge. " Shall 
 not the judge of all the earth do right V " ( Gen. is : 
 25.) The fundamental philosophy which under- 
 lies Paul's argument, here and elsewhere in his 
 epistle, is that we are not to consider the charac- 
 ter of God an open question to be determined by 
 an examination of the phenomena of life, of 
 which we know too little to afford any basis for 
 a safe generalization. We know the rectitude of 
 God by a spiritual perception, and that truth, 
 which we morally and spiritually discern, we are to 
 use In interpreting the enigmas of life. We shall 
 find this same philosophy underlying this Epistle 
 later on ; especially in Paul's explanation of pain 
 (ch. 8 : 20-28), and of dcstiuy determining different 
 human conditions (ch. 9 : 19-24). — But if Ihe 
 truth of God through my falsity abounded 
 unto his glory. Truth and falsehood are not 
 merely characteristics of speech or expression. 
 Truth is life in accordance with the eternal laws 
 of life ; falsehood is life which is false to those 
 laws. So Christ says of himself, "I am the 
 truth," and of Satan, '-He abode not in the 
 truth, because there is no truth in him" (John 14 : 
 6 ; 8 : 44). The argument of the objector then 
 is this : If God's trutli in dealing with men is 
 made manifest by their evident falsity in dealing 
 with each other, why are they judged to be sin- 
 ners ? This objection Paul does not even think 
 it necessary to answer. He simply brings it to 
 its practical outcome : Let us do evil, that good 
 may come, and so leaves it. Any metaphysics 
 which conducts to practical immorality is there- 
 by condemned.— As we be slanderously re- 
 ported. "We can only conjecture who they 
 were who charged the Apostle with doing evil 
 that good may come. From the Epistle of St. 
 James it may be inferred that there were among 
 the Jews those whom we should term antino- 
 mians, who preached faith without works ; who, 
 [ as Philo informs us, held it sulBcient to keep the 
 ; spirit of the law without conforming to its cere- 
 monies or other requirements. In the teaching 
 of St. Paul, there was sufficient to form the 
 j groundwork of such an accusation. That he was 
 sensitive to the charge, and apprehensive of the 
 I abuse of his doctrine, is evident from chap. 6 : 1." 
 
Cii. TIL] 
 
 KOMANS. 
 
 117 
 
 3 What then? are we better //««« /A^r .' No, in no 
 wise : for wo have before proved both Jews and Gen- 
 tiles, that they are all under sin : 
 
 lo As it is written.' There is none righteous, no, not 
 one : 
 
 It There is none that understandeth, there is none 
 that seckelh after (.'.od. 
 
 12 They are all gone out of the way, they are to- 
 gether become unprofitable; there is none that doeth 
 good, no, not one. 
 
 13 Their throat f is an open sepulchre ; with their 
 
 tongues they have used deceit ; the poison'' of asps is 
 unticr their lips: 
 
 14 Whose mouth ' is lull of cursing and bitterness : 
 
 15 Their feetJ are swift to shed blood : 
 
 16 Destruction and misery ure in their ways: 
 
 17 And the way of peace have they not known : 
 
 18 There '' is no fear of God before their eyes : 
 
 19 Now we know, that what things soever the law 
 saith, it saith to them who are under the law ; that 
 every mouth ' may be stopped, and all the world may 
 become guilty betore God. 
 
 f Ps. 14, 53 g Ps. 5 : 9 . 
 
 . i Ps. 10 : 1 . . . . j Isa. 69 : 7, 8 .... k I's. .■(6:1... I Ts. 107 : 45. 
 
 — (Jowett.) Christ came under the same accusa- 
 tion while he lived. See his repudiation of it in 
 the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. r> : 17-20). — Whose 
 damnation; i.e., condemnation. In old Eng- 
 lish, the word "damnation" did not possess its 
 present signification of future eternal retribu- 
 tion. It was simply equivalent to condemnation ; 
 thus we have in Chaucer, " Damnj^ed was he to 
 deye in that prisoun."' 
 
 9-20. What then? This carries back the 
 argument to the point where it was dropped at 
 verse ~9 of the preceding chapter. — Are we 
 (Jews) any better than they (Gentiles) ? In 
 bringing his charge against the Jews he identifies 
 liimself with them (comp. 1 cor. 4 : e). There is a 
 dilliculty in the Greek, here, the nature of which 
 is indicated by the fact that the Old and New 
 Ver.sions give directly contrary translations. The 
 Old Version as above, Are we better than they ? 
 the New Version, Are we in tvorse case than they ? 
 Alford gives a list of seven different interpreta- 
 tions, for each of which there is responsible, 
 scholarly authority. In such a case the context 
 is the best guide ; and the context sustains the 
 reading of the Old Version, which is that of 
 Alford, Luther, Calvin, Tholuck, Jowett, and 
 others. Jowett indicates the connection with 
 the previous chapter ; " lie (Paul) had not dis- 
 tinctly denied the privileges of the Jews ; he had 
 at least veiled the moral principle for which he 
 was conti-nding under the figure of the Jew in- 
 wardly and circumcision of the heart. * * * At 
 length, dropping his enumeration of the advan- 
 tages of the Jew, he boldly afTirms the result, 
 that the Jew is no better than the Gentile, and 
 that all need tlie salvation which all may have.'' 
 — \ot at all. For we before accused 
 both Jews and (Jreeks that they are 
 under sin. Obsen-e, not under punishment, 
 nor under condeiimation, though both are true ; 
 but under xin. It is the du itself, not the pen- 
 alty which it involves, which is the burden under 
 which humanity is bowed down, and from which 
 it is, by redemption, delivered. This, not pen- 
 alty or condemnation, is the great fact empha- 
 sized in the quotation which follows. — As it is 
 written. Paul quotes from several passages 
 
 (P«. 14 : S-4 ; 5 : 9; 14« : ri ; 10 : 7 j Prov. 1 : 16 ; Iiaiah 59 : 
 
 7, 8 ; Ps. .-ie : 1 ). Thcsc are woven together by Paul 
 in this indictment of human nature ; the quota- 
 tions are free, for the most part from the Septu- 
 agint. — There is none righteous, no not 
 one. The Psalmist (Ps. 14) does not say tiiis. 
 He says, "The Lord looked down from heaven 
 upon the children of men to see tf there were 
 any that did understand and seek God." Paul 
 embodies the result of this down-looking in his 
 own words. — Now we know that whatso- 
 ever things the law suith, it saith to 
 them that are under the law. The Jew 
 can not deny the inspiration and authority of his 
 own O. T. Scripture, nor its application to him- 
 self. For these characterizations are taken not 
 from descriptions of the Gentile Avorld, but from 
 pictures by the Hebrew poets and prophets of 
 their own people in the time of Jewish degen- 
 eracy. It is true that a description of apostasy 
 of a nation at one time does not prove its univer- 
 sal ajiostasy ; that " because England was cruel 
 in the time of the civil wars, or because Charles 
 the First had bitter and cruel enemies, we could 
 not argue that the, present generation, not to say 
 the whole world, fell under the charge of the 
 same sin." — {Jowett.) It must, however, be re- 
 membered that the Jewish pride was an heredi- 
 tai-y pride, the Jew counted himself as the 
 favorite of God lecause he was a Jew, and the 
 child of such ancestry. Proof from his own 
 sacred records, that his ancestry was under con- 
 demnation, as a guilty and godless one, took 
 away the ground from under his pride. It left 
 him far more speechless than any argument 
 drawn from his present moral condition would 
 have done. The argument in its scope is analo- 
 gous to that employed by Christ in Matt. ~o : 29- 
 IjG. Paul's citations here are not merely illustra- 
 tions. They are argumentative, his object being 
 to convict the Jewish race, as a race, of sin, be- 
 cause the Jewish pride was a race pride. — That 
 every month may be stopped. "If the 
 Jew's mouth is shut, and liis vaunting in the law 
 is taken away, then much more the Gentile's, and 
 the whole world becomes guilty before God." — 
 (Alfonl.) In fact, the Gentiles in the church, and 
 it was to a church Paul was writing, did not vaunt 
 themselves as the favored of God. They gladly 
 
118 
 
 ROMAJSS. 
 
 [Ch. hi. 
 
 20 Therefore ™ by the deeds of the law there shall no 
 flesh be justified in his sight : for by the law /s the 
 knowledge of sin. 
 
 21 But now the righteousness of God without the 
 law is manifested, being witnessed by the law" and 
 the prophets ; 
 
 m Ps. 143 : 2. . . .n Acts 26 : 22. 
 
 acknowledged that they came into the church 
 Lj' his free grace ; Paul's object is to show that 
 Jew and Gentile came in together on the same 
 basis. — And all the world may be brought 
 under the judgment of God. That is, may 
 be seen to be subject to his just condemnation 
 and needing his pardon and his grace. — Be- 
 cause ; not therefore. The Apostle does not, as 
 in our. Old Version he appears to do, draw a 
 general conclusion from what has gone before ; 
 he states a reason for the assurance that the con- 
 demnation of the O. T. was directed against the 
 Jews, and shows all the world to be guilty before 
 God ; this reason is found in a further quotation 
 from the Psalms (ps. 143 : -2). — By; (fz) out of, 
 indicating the source or origin of justification or 
 rightening. — The deeds of the law ; obedi- 
 ence to external statutes, whether divine or 
 human. There is neither here nor any where else 
 in the N. T. a ground for supposing that Paul 
 uses the term law to signify the ceremonial law. 
 It is not by obedience to law that character is 
 redeemed from sin and set right in God's sight. 
 — Shall no flesh be Tightened in his sight. 
 Obedience to law, if it were perfect, would not 
 make the obedient right in God's sight, for God 
 looks upon the heart (1 sam. le ; ?), that is, upon 
 the character, not upon the conduct. — For 
 through the law cometh the knowledge 
 of sin. This added clause ought to have pre- 
 vented the error of imagining that Paul speaks 
 here of ceremonial law merely. His meaning is 
 interpreted by his own experience as rendered in 
 the seventh chapter. The knowledge ( t/r/yi woic) 
 of sin is a spiritual consciousness of it, a personal 
 conviction of it. This declaration, and 1 Tim. 
 1 : 9, indicate Paul's interpretation of the func- 
 tion of law. It is first to afford a standard of 
 life, and so bring home to men a consciousness of 
 their sinfulness, and second to restrain wicked 
 and lawless men from overt acts which are inju- 
 rious and destructive to themselves and others. 
 It is not redemptive ; and is only incidentally 
 reformatory. 
 
 21-2G. These verses sum up the conclusion of 
 Paul's argument thus far and lead on to the rest 
 of the Epistle, which is simply an amplification 
 and illustration of them, drawn partly from per- 
 sonal experience and partly from Scripture. The 
 correct interpretation of this passage affords 
 therefore a key to the interpretation of the whole 
 Epistle, and a misreading of the meaning here is 
 fatal to the reading of the whole Epistle, and 
 indeed to the reading of Paul's entire life and 
 
 teaching. In some important respects, as indi- 
 cated in the general interpretation of this chapter, 
 my understanding of this passage, as of what has 
 preceded and what follows, differs from the in- 
 terpretation current in the commentaries and 
 works of theology. In the notes here I simply 
 take up the passage clause by clause so as to verify, 
 or at least indicate, the grounds of the general con- 
 clusions as embodied in the paraphrastic trans- 
 lation on i^age 114 above. — But noAV ; in these 
 later day.-;, and under the Christian dispensatioiL 
 — Apart from the law ; by another method. 
 — God's righteousness; neither ?^e righteous- 
 ness of God as in the Old Version, nor a right- 
 eousness as in the New Version ; the definite 
 article is wanting, but its absence does not indi- 
 cate what the indefinite article does in English. 
 God's righteousness is neither an attribute nor a 
 gift ; it is God's true character ; see Introduc- 
 tion, pp. 54r-57, and note on ch. 1 : 17. — Is man- 
 ifested. While it is too much to say that the 
 only object of the life, sufferings, and death of 
 Christ was to mayiifext the true nattire of God to 
 man, it is worthy of note what emphasis Paul 
 puts upon this aspect of the incarnation and the 
 atonement. In chapter 1 : 16, 17 this is the only 
 aspect he refers to : "therein is revealed GoA's 
 righteousness ; " in this passage he reiterates with 
 repeated emphasis this aspect of it : God's right- 
 eousness hath been manifested; "whom God 
 hath set forth," i. e., before the world, "to shew 
 his righteousness," "for the shewing of his 
 righteousness at this present time." This repe- 
 tition indicates the emphasis which, in Paul's 
 mind, attached to the revelatoiy character of the 
 Gospel ; to the Gospel as a manifestation of the 
 true character of God. — Being witnessed by 
 the law and the prophets. The same char- 
 acteristic of God is testified to by the O. T.; in 
 fragments there, in perfection in the N. T. 
 (Heb. 1 : 1, 2) ; Hot Understood by the Jews because 
 they were hard of heart and slow to believe, and 
 read with a veU upon their hearts (Lute 24 : 25 ; 
 2 Cor. 3 : 14, lo). The God of the O. T. and the God 
 manifested in the New in Jesus Christ his Son 
 are the same ; and the witness, if it be read 
 aright, is the same. " This (declaration) pre- 
 cludes the misconception that the righteousness 
 revealed apart from the law is opposed or foreign 
 to the O. T., and is consequently an Innovation 
 without a background in sacred history. " — Meyer. 
 — God's righteousness, however through 
 (di'u), faith in the Messiah. It is the same 
 character or righteousness witnessed then by 
 
Ch. iii.j 
 
 1K)MA.\S. 
 
 119 
 
 22 Even the righteousness of God, ivhich is by 
 faith" of Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all them that 
 believe : for there is no difference : 
 
 23 For all I" have sinned, and come short of the glory 
 of God ; 
 
 24 Bcinp: justified freely by his grace, through the 
 redemption that is in Christ Jesus: 
 
 .p Ecclcs. 
 
 the law and tho prophets, now by the Messiah, 
 Siuritually receiyed as the revehiiiou of (iod's 
 trae character. The word Jesus is wanting in 
 tht best text. Faith in the Messiah prefig- 
 ure! by type and ceremony, and foretold oy 
 prophet, was not unknown as a ground of right- 
 eousness in the 0. T. and to the ancient Hebrews. 
 This truth Paul biings out more clearly in the 
 following chapter resjiecting Abraham. That 
 faiih involved an expectation of the Messiah, 
 founded on the word, and therefore on the char- 
 acter ur righteousness of God. — Unto all Avho 
 exercise faith. The words upon, all are t)mitted 
 by Wtstcott and Hort, and bj- Jowett and the 
 New Version ; they do not alter the sense ; they 
 onlj- add emphasis. God's righteousness, i. e., 
 his true character, is revealed both in the O. T. 
 and the N. T. as offered unto and conferred upon 
 all those who exercise faith in him through his 
 Son, and so become themselves sous of God, and 
 partakers of the divine nature (Rom. 8 : i4; 2 Pet. 
 1 : 4). It is revealed only to those who have a 
 spiritual apprehension, i. <'., faith; and the Mes- 
 siah was crucified by the Jews because they 
 knew him not (Acts 13 -. n -, 1 Cor. 2:8); i. e., had no 
 faith to perceive his true character. — For there 
 is no ditlerence ; between Jew and Greek. 
 All men, Jew and Gentile, Christian and pagan, 
 stand on the same looting, and are treated upon 
 the same princii)les by God. — For all have 
 sinned and fall short of the glory of 
 (>od. The first i# past ; we have committed 
 sin ; the second is present ; we do constantly fall 
 short of God's glory ; the first relates to acts, 
 the second to character. The glory of God is 
 not .his praise, nor his glory which he receives in 
 the heavenly state from the believer (both mean- 
 ings are attached to it by commentators), but 
 that glorious image of God which constitutes the 
 Father's ideal of character for all his chQdren. 
 Man was made in that image (o^n. 1 : 2:), his bear- 
 ing that image makes him the glory of God 
 (1 Cor. n : 7), that glory is shown forth by us when 
 we laj' hold on and realize the presence of God 
 (s Cor. 1 : 20). To this glofj', conferred in redemp- 
 tion by his divine power, his promises call us 
 (2 Pet. 1 : 3). That glory has been realized bj- but 
 one man, the man Christ Jesus, who is the 
 brightness of his Father's glory (Heb. 1 : .3), and 
 we are changed into the same glory as we receive 
 and reflect his image in our own lives (2 cor. 3: is). 
 In view of these passages I fail to understand 
 Alford's declaration that the interpretation, glo- 
 
 rious image of God, is '' against both the usage 
 and the context of the passage," "The glory of 
 God can not in reality be any thing essentially 
 different from the righteousness of God."' — 
 {Meyer.) It is God's own character for wliich he 
 had from the first intended us, of which he gives 
 in the life and character oi' Christ an exemplifica- 
 tion, and into which he transforms us by his 
 redeeming grace. — Being rightened. Brought 
 into right relations with him, and so into a right 
 and harmonious character in ourselves ; set right 
 and made riuht (see Introduction, p. 58, 59). — 
 Freely by his grace. Freehj, without any 
 cause or reason outside himself. The Greek 
 word rendered //-tt'^y (Jcootai), is the one used in 
 John 15 : 25. They hated me witTund a raiise. 
 The cause of God's redeeming love lies in nothing 
 exterior to himself ; its springs are in his owti 
 essential and eternal nature (Ephes. 2 : 4 ; 1 John 4 : 
 10, 19 ; Rom. 6 : 2.3). ITis grace, his disposition of kind- 
 ness and good-will toward his children. This 
 sentence, confirmed by the whole current of N. T. 
 teaching, negatives the idea that the redemption 
 spoken of in the next clause is for the purpose 
 of purchasing or winning the good-will of God 
 toward his children. The sacrifice of Christ Ls 
 not for the purpose of inducing God to forgive. 
 — Through the redemption that is in 
 Christ Jesns. The tigure is of a ransom paid 
 for the deliverance of a slave or prisoner. Paul 
 himself is to be studied in parallel passages to 
 ascertain what is the slavery from which Christ 
 purchases us. And that study makes it clear 
 that he purchases us not from the wrath of God, 
 whose love he buys, but from the burden and 
 dominion of sin. We were slaves to sin ; we are 
 made free from the law of sin and death and be- 
 come the bondmen of righteousness (ch. 6 : 17, is). 
 The following are all the passages in which Paul 
 uses this word redemption : Rom. 3 : 24 ; 8 : 2o ; 
 1 Cor. 1 : m ; Ephes. 1 : T, 14 ; 4 : 30 ; Col. 1 : 14 ; 
 Heb. 9 : 15 ; 11 : 35 ( rendered ihiivcrance'). It is ) 
 clear from Rom. 8 : 23, and Ephes. 1 : 14 ; 4 : 30, ' 
 that the redemption of which Paul speaks is not 
 completed in this life, but is looked forward to 
 by him to be completed in the future ; but the 
 deliverance from divine wrath and the reconcil- 
 iation of the soul to God is complete and perfect 
 in this life ; we are the sons of God (Rom. s : ib; 
 1 John 5 : 2). It is equally clear from 1 Cor. 1:1^; 
 Ephes. 1:7; Col. 1 : 14; Heb. 9 : 15, that this 
 purchased redemption is deliverance from the 
 power and dominion of sin. It is coupled in 
 
120 
 
 KOMANS. 
 
 [Ch. III. 
 
 25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation 
 through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness 
 for the remission of sins that are past, through the for- 
 bearance ot God : 
 
 26 To declare, / say^ at this time, his righteousness : 
 that hei might be just, and the justifier of him which 
 believeth in Jesus. 
 
 (J ActE IS : J*, 'it. 
 
 1 Cor. 1 : 30 with ■wisdom, righteousness, and 
 sanctification ; it is explicitly declared in Ephes. 
 1 : T and Col. 1 : 14 to be the forgiveness or 
 remission or sending away of sins (see notes 
 there and Introduction, pp. 68, 69) ; and it is de- 
 fined explicitly in Ileb. 9 : 15 to be redemption 
 from transgressions. Comp. 1 Thess. 5:9, " God 
 hath not appointed us to wrath but to a pur- 
 chatitd posse.ssiu/1 of salvation through our Lord 
 Jesus Christ ; " and 2 Thess. 2 : 13, 14, " God hath 
 from the beginning chosen you to salvation 
 through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of 
 the truth, whereunto (i. e., to sanctification or 
 holiness of character) he called j'ou by our Gos- 
 pel, to the purchased possession of the glorj' of 
 the Lord Jesus Christ," i. e., to be like him, joint 
 heir with him, partaker of his nature. The 
 redemption that is in Christ Jesus is redemption 
 from the curse and the power of sin. How this 
 redemption from .sin is accomplished is indicated 
 in the next clause. — Whom God hath set 
 forth. Before the world, publicly (Robinson's 
 Lexicon). — To be a 3Iercy-Seat. The Greek 
 word {iXaaTtjni.01) occurs in the N. T. only here, 
 and in Heb. 9:5; in the latter place it is ren- 
 dered Mercy-Seat. It occurs in the Septuagint 
 version of the 0. T. in the following passages, 
 and is uniformly rendered Jleroj-Seat : Exod. 25 : 
 17, 23 ; Lev. 16 : 2, 13 ; 26 : 34 ; 4ft : 20 ; Numb. 
 7 : 89. I am unable to see any good reason for 
 departing from the uniform translation of this 
 word in every place where It occurs in the Bible, 
 and rendering it here 23ropi(iation ; and this de- 
 parture has greatly added to the difficulty of 
 rendering intelligible this passage. In the Taber- 
 nacle, and in the subsequent Temple, behind the 
 veil, in the Holj' of Holies, in the most sacred 
 place, which gave sacred ness to the entire edifice, 
 was the ark of the covenant, a chest or box of 
 shittim or accacia wood, containing the tables of 
 the covenant. The lid of this ark was a plate of 
 gold, and was shadowed by the two cherubim. 
 This golden top of the ark of the covenant was 
 the Mercy-Seat. This ark and Mercy-Seat stood 
 in the Temple where the idol stood in the pagan 
 temples, and was the representative of an invisi- 
 ble, spiritual God, who manifested himself to 
 Israel in the Law within the Ark, and on the 
 Mercy-Seat above it. The function of this Mercy- 
 Seat was clearly defined in the Levitical law. It 
 was the manifestation of God to his people, the 
 peculiar place of communion between him and 
 them, the place of mediation and manifestation. 
 
 "Thou shalt make a Mercy-Seat * * * and 
 there I will meet with thee and commune with 
 thee from above the Mercy-Seat" (Eiod. 25 : n, 22). 
 "I will appear in the cloud upon the Mercy- 
 Seat" (Lev. iG : 2). "And when Moses was gone 
 into the Tabernacle of the Congregation to speak 
 to him (marginal, God) then he hi-ard the voice 
 of One speaking to him from ofE the Mercy -Seat " 
 (xomb. 7 : b; ). Thcsc vcrscs clearly define the func- 
 tion of the Mercy-Seat in the Jewish ritual and 
 its aspect in the Jemsh mind ; it was the point 
 of communion between God and man. Translate 
 this Greek word here, as it is everywhere else in 
 the Bible translated, and as it was translated by 
 Tj^ndale, and give to it this significance attached 
 to it by centuries of association in the Jewish 
 mind, and the Apostle's meaning is cleared of 
 the confusion which has resulted from transfer- 
 ring to the English the form of the Latin word 
 propUiatorium, used in the Vulgate, both in the 
 
 0. T. and the N. T., to designate the Mercy- 
 Seat. The passage will then read : W/ioni God 
 hath set forth before the world as tJie Mercy-Seat, 
 through whom ice have access to the Father (Ephee. 
 2 : is), tJie one Mediator between God and man, 
 (i Tim. 2 : 5), once hidden behind the veil, but now the 
 veil being rent, set forth to all, laymaii as well as 
 2Jriest, Gentile as icell as Jew, that all may have free 
 
 approach (Heb. lO : 19-22 ; 1 John 1 : s). Of Clirist's 
 
 sufferings as appeasing God's wrath and making 
 him propitious to man, there is no hint in this 
 passage, thus read in the light of parallel pas- 
 sages, and as it would have been read by the 
 devout Jew familiar both with the word and with 
 the spiritual significance of the sacred spot which 
 it indicated. It is proper to advise the reader 
 that Meyer, Alford, Jowett, and the commenta- 
 tors generally, give to the word the meaning 
 given to it by our translators. But they do not 
 give what seems to me to be any adequate reason 
 for rejecting the general, and as I believe, fun- 
 damental principle of interpretation, that in all 
 difficult passages every doubtful word is to be 
 understood as the immediate readers would have 
 understood it, or at least not inconsistently with 
 such an understanding. — Through faith in his 
 blood. There is some question whether this 
 phrase should read. Through faith in his blood, 
 
 1. e., through faith which apprehends and rests 
 upon Christ's blood, or by his blood through 
 faith, i. e. , by his blood as the cause of salvation, 
 through our faith as the means of salvation. The 
 latter is the rendering of the New 'Version, and 
 
Cii. III.) 
 
 KOMANS. 
 
 121 
 
 L>7 Whore is boastinjr then ? It is excluded. Bj* 
 what hiw ? of works ? N'ay ; but by the law of faith. 
 
 28 Therefore we conclude ihal^ a man is justified by 
 faith without the deeds of the liiw. 
 
 r ver. 20, 22 ; eh. 
 
 is sustained by Jowett, Meyer, and Alford ; tbe 
 fortuer rendering is that of the Old Version and 
 of the American Revision in the New Version, 
 and appears to nie the simpler and more natural 
 interpretation, altliough called "unexampled" 
 by Alford ; luul Jowett declares that no such ex- 
 pression occurs in Scripture "as faith in the 
 blood, or even in the death of Christ." But as 
 our faith eviilently must apprehend and rest 
 upon that which saves us, the difference in the 
 rendering is not practically material. In further 
 iuterjireting this enigmatical language we are 
 to apply the same principle used in interpreting 
 the preceding clause. What would a pious Jew 
 understand by the "blood?" What but sacri- 
 fice y The whole Jewish ritual was a bloody one. 
 The shedding of blood in sacrifice was the ex- 
 pression of every form of worship, — penitence, 
 j)raise, consecration. Pre-emiuently it was the 
 expression of repentance on the i)art of sinful 
 humanity, and of pardon on the part of God. 
 This signification to the Jewish mind is indicated 
 by Ileb. 9 : 22. " Without the shedding of blood 
 is no remission " (of sins). Particularly the 
 Mercy-Seat could be approached only by the 
 High Priest on the Great Day of Atonement, 
 and by liim only as he sprinkled the blood of the 
 sacrifice on and before the Mercy-Seat, to blot 
 out all the transgressions which the law under- 
 neath was ever charging upon the people 
 (Uv. 16 : 2, 14, 16). Christ is the Lamb of God 
 wliich taketh away the sin of the world (john i : 29). 
 His sufferings and death are pre-eminently saeri- 
 ficiiil. What in the Jewish ritual the bloody 
 sacrifices were, that in Paul's apprehension the 
 life, sufferings, and deatli of Christ are in Chris- 
 tianity. Jesus Christ is to the world what the 
 entire system of sacrifices was to the Hebrew 
 race. The contrast and the parallel are both 
 indicated with wonderful terseness in Paul's 
 jihraseology here, where every w^ord is jjregnant 
 with mercy. In the Hebrew system there was a 
 Mercy-Seat where God met humanity ; it was hid 
 behind the veil ; only the High Priest could enter ; 
 and lie only once a year ; and then only with the 
 sheilding of blood. In the Christian system (>od 
 hatli set forth before all the people Jesus Christ 
 his Son, as a Mercy -Seat ; to whom all have 
 access ; at all times ; and no other blood is 
 needed than that which he has himself shed. 
 For interpretation of this passage by Paul or by 
 one of his pupils read with care Heb. 'J : 1-14. 
 Faith, the reader must remember, is here, and 
 every-where in Paul's use of it, not belief — it 
 
 never stands for an intellectual apprehension ; — 
 nor trust, it is never a mere reliance ; — nor choice, 
 it is never an act of the will ; — but spiritual aji- 
 prchension and appreciation, "the evidence of 
 
 things unseen " (ikb. 11 : 1 ; .omp. 2 Cor. 4 : is). 
 
 "Faith in his blood," then, is a spiritual appre- 
 hensicm and appreciation of Christ's sacrifice ; 
 not an ophiion about it, not merely a reliance 
 ujjon it, but a spiritual participation in it. We 
 have faith in his cross when we take up our cross 
 and follow him; faith in his sufferings and sac- 
 rifice for sin when we share his burden and feel 
 its bitterness, when we .suffer with him (Rom. 8 :n; 
 2 Tim. 2:11, 12). — To .slicw his righteousness 
 through the passing; over of sins, that are 
 past, in the forbearance of God. The life, 
 sufferings, and death of Christ, atoning for sin, 
 make it clear that God's passing over of sins in 
 the past, in both Jew and (ientile, was due not 
 to his moral indifference, as skeptics then sup- 
 posed and still suppose (2 Pet. :i ; 3, 4), but to his 
 forbearance, i.e., his holding back{(xyix'iii(u) ot his 
 indignation against sin, that by the forth-putting 
 of his own nature in divine impulses, he might 
 reclaim sinful humanity from their sins. Parallel 
 to this declaration of God's forbearance toward 
 humanit}', interpreted l)y the revelation of his, 
 purposes of mercy in Christ Jesus, are Acts 
 17 : 30 ; Eom. 2 : 4.— To shew (01 th his right- 
 eousness in this present time. The atone- 
 ment of Christ manifests, not merely the right- 
 eousness of God in the forbearance or pasdiig 
 over t)f sins in past times, but also in the forgiveness 
 and rernixfiion of sins iu the present time. This 
 pre.setit time is tlie time of the Gospel dispensa- 
 tion. — That he might be righteous and the 
 rightener of him that exercises faith in 
 Jesus. Not that he might be the rightener of 
 the believer notwithstanding his righteousness; 
 but that he might be seen to i>ossess that kind 
 of righteousness which does righten those who 
 through faith, i. e., spiritual apprehension, come 
 into such direct, jjcrsonal, sympathetic relations 
 with God, as he is set forth in Jesus Christ his 
 Son, that they can become the recii>ients of his 
 grace, the partakers of his nature, and so enter 
 into his glory. 
 
 27-31 . These verses sum up the course of the 
 Apostle's argument thus far. — Where then is 
 the boasting. Of the Jews (oii. 2 : n). — It is 
 excluded. By what law? Of works? 
 Nay, but by the law of faith. There is 
 perhaps a kind of Pauline jilay upon the word 
 law. The law forbids boasting ; nut an edict. 
 
122 
 
 EOMANS. 
 
 [Ch. III. 
 
 29 Is he the God of the Jews only ? is he not also of 
 the Gentiles ? Yes, of the Gentiles also : 
 
 30 Seeing it is one God, which* shall justify the cir- 
 
 cumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through 
 faith. 
 
 31 Do we then make void the law through ' faith ? 
 God forbid : yea, we establish the law. 
 
 s Gal. 3 : S, 
 
 , . .t Heb. 10 : 15, 16. 
 
 but a law of the spiritual nature. If a man's 
 character is built b^' his own activities, if he is 
 spiritually a self-made man, he may boast ; but 
 if he is buUt up by a character imparted to him, 
 if his life is the gift of God, through faith, he 
 can glory only in the Lord (i Cor. i -.si). "The 
 contrast is not here between the law and the 
 Gospel as two dispensations, but between the 
 law of works and the law of faith, whether 
 found under the law or under the Gosi^el." — 
 {Alford.) — For Ave conclude that inau is 
 lightened by faith apart from the deeds 
 of the law. Not by obedience to external 
 enactments, human or divine, but by a living, 
 vital fellowship with God, by receiving the play 
 of the divine nature upon our own, we are 
 Tightened and brought into oneness with God, 
 " Men are justLfled from within, not from with- 
 out ; from above, not from below ; by the grace 
 of God, and not of ourselves ; by Christ, not by 
 the law ; not by the burden of ordinances, but 
 by the power of an endless life." — {.fowett.) — Is 
 he the God only of the Jews, and not also 
 of the Gentiles ? This is but repetition, for 
 the sake of greater clearness and emphasis, of 
 conclusions arrived at and stated before (ch. 2 : e-ii). 
 
 Yea also of the Gentiles ; since God is 
 one, who rightens the circumcision by 
 faith. !So that the circumcisiun is of no avail 
 unless it be the expression of a faith in God. — 
 And the uncircumcision through faith. 
 So that, as in the case of Abraham, the faith of 
 one uncircumcised is counted to him for right- 
 eousness. — Do we then make the law of no 
 effect ? As those do who declare that the Gos- 
 pel lias abolished the law ; a verj^ common decla- 
 ration in modern times, and even in orthodox 
 circles, but one for which there is not only no 
 iScriptural authority, but which here and else- 
 where is distinctly and emphatically repudiated. 
 See Matt. 5 : 17-19, where the relation of Christ 
 to the law is stated exactly as it is stated here. 
 Christ came not to abolish but to fulfill the law, 
 — By no means. See note on ch. 3 : 4. — But 
 we establish the law. We make it to be 
 steadfast, b}- showing how the end of the law, 
 a divinely patterned character (1 Tim. 1 : 5), is ac- 
 complished by faith in a Divine Person. The law, 
 like an outline, indicates the character to be 
 filled out ; God's grace, received by faith, fills up 
 the outline, and so fulfills the law. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 TnE OLD TESTAMENT DOCTJMNK OF F A T T IT , 
 
 What then shall we say 'that Abraham, oiir forefather according to the flesh, hath fouudf ** 
 For if Abraham was justified by works, he hath whereof to glory ; but not toward God. For 
 what saith the scripture y And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him for 
 righteousness. Now to him that worketh, the reward is not reckoned as of grace, but as of 
 debt. But to him that worketh not. but bclieveth on him that justitieth the ungodly, his faith 
 is reckoned for righteousness. Even as David also pronounceth blessing upon the man, unto 
 whom God reckoneth righteousness apart from works, saying. 
 
 Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, 
 
 And whose sins are covered. 
 
 Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not reckon sin. 
 Is this blessing then pronounced upon the circumcision, or upon the uncircumcision also ? for 
 we say. To Abraham his faith was reckoned for righteousness. How then was it reckoned ? 
 when he was in circumcision, or in uncii'cumcision ? Not in circumcision, but in uncircum- 
 cision : and he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which 
 he had while he was in uncircumcision : that he might be the father of all them that believe, 
 though they be in uncircumcision. that righteousness might be reckoned unto them ; and the 
 father of circumcision to them who not only are of the circumcision, but who also walk in the 
 steps of that faith of our father Abraham which he had in uncircumcision. For not -through 
 the law was the promise to Abraham or to his seed, that he should be heir of the world, but 
 through the righteousness of faith. For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made 
 void, and the promise is made of none effect : for the law worketh wrath ; but where there is 
 no law, neither is there transgression. For this cause it is of faith, that it may be according to 
 grace ; to the end that the promise may be sure to all the seed ; not to that only which is of the 
 law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all (as it is 
 written, A father of many nations ha\e I made thee* before him whom he believed, even God, 
 who quickeneth the dead, and calleth the things that are not, as though they were. Who in 
 hope believed against hope, to the end that he might become a father of many nations, accord 
 ing to that which had been spoken, So shall thy seed be. And without being weakened in 
 faith he considered his own body ^now as good as dead (he being about a hundred years old), 
 and the deadness of Sarah's womb : yea. looking unto the promise of God. he wavered not 
 through unbelief, but waxed strong through faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured 
 that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform. Wherefore also it was reckoned unto 
 him for righteousness. Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was reckoned unto 
 him ; but for our sake also, unto whom it shall be reckoned, who believe on him that raised 
 Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up for our trespasses, and was raised for our 
 justification. 
 
 1 .'^omc ancient 
 authorities read 
 of Ahraham, our 
 forefather accord' 
 hiff to the flesh T 
 ** For '* accord- 
 ing to the fUth, 
 hath found ,*' rcaj 
 " hath found ac- 
 cording to the 
 jiesh,"^ and put 
 the preseut text 
 into the margin.— 
 Am. Com. 
 
 2 Or. through law. 
 
 The fourth chapter of Romans i.s an amplification of the doctrine stated in the last 
 ver.se of the preceding chapter. Do we then make void the law through faith ? GihI 
 forhid : Yea, we establi.sh the law. The notion sometimes openly asserted, more frequently 
 imidied, that the New Testament is inconsistent with and a substitute for the Old Testa- 
 ment, is not only utterly foreign to, but absolutely iuconsi.stent with, Paul's teaching. 
 Indeed it is impossible that he should have commended the gospel to the Jews if he had 
 regarded or presented it as something opposed to the principles inculcated by the Old 
 Testament. For the Old Testament was to the Jew what the Bible is to the Protestant 
 Christian, only regarded with a still greater degree of reverence ; and a teacher wlio should 
 havt! undertaken to set forth a system of religious truth inconsistent with and su]>planting 
 the Old Te.stament would not even have received a hearing. The Jews at Berea, com- 
 mended for their nobility of mind, searched the Scriptures to see whether the word of Paul 
 
124 ROMANS. [Ch. IV. 
 
 was true,' and to tlie Scriptures Paul made constant appeal, both in liis letters and in his 
 spokeii addresses. In the fourth chapter of Romans, then, Paul undertakes to show that 
 his doctrine of faith is in accordance with the doctrine of faith inculcated in the Jewish 
 Scriptures ; that it is a natural develijpment therefrom, differing from it only as the blossom 
 differs from the bud. He goes back to Abraham, father of the faithful, progenitor of the 
 Jewish nation, and in all their history the most prominent exemplification of faith, and he 
 inquires what was the faith which Abraham exemplified : " What then shall we say that 
 Abraham, our father as pertaining to the flesh, hath found ?" Thus the fourth chapter of 
 Romans is identical in doctrine and spirit with the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, though 
 the latter draws on the whole of the Old Testament history, while the former draws only 
 on tlie life and character of Aljraham, to illustrate and enforce the same doctrine of faith ; 
 namely, that it is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.* 
 Abraham was rightened, not by works, but by faith ; for the Scripture is explicit that 
 Abraham had faith in God, and this was counted to him for righteousness. Now this faith 
 was not belief in any system of doctrine, for he exercised it before any system of truth had 
 been made known. It was a trust and confidence in an invisible and unknown God, and a 
 following of him into an unknown land. It was not a knowledge about God, but a life in 
 and with God, a life of obedience springing out of filial confidence and trust. Moreover, 
 this faith in the father of the faithful and the progenitor of the Jewish race, was exercised 
 by him before the Jewish nation existed, before the rite of circumcision was established. 
 When Abraham believed in God and it was counted to him for righteousness, he was a 
 pagan and not a Jew. Thus the history of Abraham illustrates each point in Paul's doctrine : 
 (1) That men are rightened, not by certain deeds done, but by faith ; (2) that this faith is 
 not an intellectual opinion, agreeing with certain precedent revelations, but a filial relation 
 with God, entered into by the soul, and may antedate all revelations ; and (3) that wherever 
 this faith is exercised and by whomsoever it is exercised, whether by Jew^ or Gentile, 
 Christian or pagan, it is acceptable to God, and becomes the starting-point of a new and 
 divine life. This is the gist of the fourth chapter of Romans ; and it assumes a vital con- 
 nection between the Old Testament and the New Testament, and a substantial spiritual 
 unity connecting them. 
 
 Theologians have been puzzled by the fact that there is no evidence that Abraham 
 possessed what is theologically known as a "saving faith "in Christ. " Abraham could 
 not," says Alford, " in the strict sense of the words be justified by faith in Christ, — nor is 
 it necessary to suppose that he directed his faith forward to the promised Redeemer in 
 person ; but in so far as God's gracioi;s purpose was revealed to him he grasped it by faith, 
 and that righteousness which was implied was imputed to him." The difficulty seems to 
 me to grow out of a misapprehension of the nature of faith. Abraham's faith — not in some 
 doctrine or revelation of God, not in some Messiah revealed perfectly or imperfectly — but 
 his faith in God himself, was the root of his righteousness, and was reckoned for righteous- 
 . ness in him. Christ is not a substitute for God, but the way to God ; and faith in Christ 
 lis not a substitute for faith in God, but one form, and the simplest and easiest form of faith 
 lin God ; because in Christ there is some sensible manifestation of him who is otherwise the 
 invisible and the imutterable. This Abrahamic faith in God himself is throughout the Old 
 Testament recognized as the only condition of divine grace and the new life, and in the 
 New Testament Christ is set forth, not to take the place of this faith in God, but to con- 
 duct to it and develop it. 
 
 J Acts 17: 11. 2Hebll:l. 
 
Ch. IV.] ROMANS. 135 
 
 Speaking KroaillN , neither Judaism nor Christianity are a special religion. They are 
 special revelations uf the absolute and universal religion. They assume in God a self- 
 revealing power ; in man a power of receiving the revelation of God. They lay hold of 
 and use elements universal in huniau nature. Thus recent scholarship has made it evident 
 that tlie accounts of creation and the fall contained in the first chapters of Genesis are not 
 new au<l befon* unheard-of revelations of the origin of the world and of the human race, 
 but are an employment in a sjiirit of faith, and with a perception (jf their spiritual mean- 
 ing, of the materials which in an unspiritual form are to be found in the cosmogonies of 
 other nations. So the rite of circumcision is not exclusively Jewish. It was employed by 
 people so widely separated and differently circumstanced as the Egyptians, the Ethiopians, 
 the Troylodytes, tlie Caffres of South Africa, and the islanders of the Pacific Ocean. So, 
 again, the employment of sacrifice as a ritual of worship is by no means confined to the 
 Jewish people, and was not derived from them. It is substantially universal ; what is 
 peculiar in the Old Testament ritual is that a metln »\ employed by all nation.s is seized 
 upon, adopted, and spiritualized ; faith is imparted to it. The whole Old Testament his- 
 tory illustrates the conflict between the two tendencies, the sacerdotal and the spiritual. 
 On the one hand, the sacerdotal class puts emphasis on the mere ritual, and so tends to 
 eliminate the spiritual life from it ; on the other, the prophets constantly endeavor to turn 
 the thoughts of the people away from the mere outward expression to the life which tliis 
 adopted symbolism was intended to express. In other words, the symbolism of the 
 Hebrews, like their language, was borrowed from that of other nations, and made the 
 vehicle of new spiritual truth and life. What distinguished the religion of the Hebrews 
 from that of their neighbors, was far less the outward form, whether of ritual or of lan- 
 guage, than the spirit of faith, which perceived beneath both ritual and language, a spiritual 
 meaning, because in it all a means of a real communion with God, and of a reception of 
 divine life from him. Fnjui Samuel's declaration to Saul, " To obey is better than sacri- 
 fice,"' to Micah's summary of the Jewi.sh law, " What doth the Lord require of thee, but to 
 do justly, and to love merc\-, and to walk humbly wutli thy God,"" the burden of prophetic 
 instruction- — and it must be remembered that the priests were not preachers or teachers, 1 lut 
 that the prophets were the religimis instructors of the Hebrews — was that all tlie symbolism 
 and all the ceremonial law had only one olyect, the cultivation of a spirit of faith in (jrod 
 which works by lo\e. Those critics of Paul who imagine that he was embarrassed by the 
 remains of his Jewish instruction do not comprehend what Judaism was, in its pure form, 
 as interpreted by spirits who like Paul comprehended its real significance. The abso- 
 lute religion is the religion of faith in God : the religion of a heart-hunger for right- 
 eousness as the end of life, and of a reception of Gtxl in the heart as the means of attain- 
 ing that end ; and it involves an interpretation of all creed-form.s, personal experiences, and 
 human history a.s instruments for developing that spirit of faith in God and the life of 
 righteousness through faith. This religious life is .seen in Abraham before the Jewish 
 nation existed ; it was exhibited in such characters as Melchizedek and Job outside all 
 Jewish revelation ; it is thus proved to have exi.sted outside of both Judaism and Chris- 
 tianity. These are not identical with the life of faith ; they are simply the supreme his- 
 torical manifestations of that life and the divine development of it. In these two world 
 religions the life of faith receives its highest illustrations ; in these two divine revelations 
 it finds its highe.st and best God-given culture. 
 
 » 1 Sam. 15 : 22 » Micah : 8. 
 
126 
 
 EOMANS. 
 
 [Ch. IV 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 WHAT shall we then say that Abraham, our father" 
 as pertaining to the flesh, hath found ? 
 
 2 For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath 
 ■whereof to glory ; but not'' before God. 
 
 3 For what saith the scripture ? "^ Abraham believed 
 God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. 
 
 a Matt. 3:9 b ch. 3 : 27 : 1 Cor. 1 : 
 
 Ch. 4 : 0. T. HISTORY INTERFUETI'D.— Abraham an 
 
 IIXUSTRATION or JUSTIFYING FAITH. — DaVID ALSO. — 
 
 Faith and justification preceded circumcision ; 
 they antedate all churches and all rituals. — 
 Faith exemplified and intubpreted. 
 
 1-3. What shall Ave theu say that 
 Abraham, our father as pertaining to 
 the flesh, hath found ? According to some 
 scholars Paul's meaning is: What hath Abra- 
 ham found according to the flesh. The other 
 reading appears to me preferable, nor is it any 
 argument against it that "Tlie course and spirit 
 of the argument is not to limit the paternity of 
 Abraham to a mere fleshly one, but to say that 
 he was the spiritual father of all believers." — 
 (Alford.) To Paul, as to Christ his master, the 
 fatherhood of Abraham, on ^vhich the Jews laid 
 such stress, was wholly insignificant, since by 
 faith he had come into a full realization of the 
 fatherhood of God. When, therefore, he speaks 
 of Abraham as forefather, he adds "according 
 to the flesh,'' because the other and spiritual 
 fatherhood of God which makes all the world 
 kin is always the predominant thought in his 
 mind. — For if Abraham Avas justified by 
 works, he hath, etc. This and the next 
 verse afford an illustration of Paul's elliptical 
 style. He really presents two conclusive argu- 
 ments against the notion that man is justified by 
 his works. The first is barely suggested, the 
 second is more fullj' stated. If Abraham was 
 justified by works he hath whereof to glory. 
 But this is palpably false ; it requires no argu- 
 ment to show its falsity ; it is enough barely to 
 say, in a word, that he could not glory before 
 God, for no man, as he has already shown, is 
 right in God's sight (Rom z -. 9-19). But in addition 
 to tills the Scripture is explicit in its declaration 
 that Abraham had faith in God, and this faith 
 was reckoned to him as righteousness. The quo- 
 tation is from Gen. 15 : 6, and follows the Septu- 
 agint. If the reader will turn to Gen. 12 : 1— I he 
 will see at once how simple and how strong this 
 faith was : strong in that it induced Abraham to 
 leave his native land and go out to be a pilgrim 
 and a stranger in a laud unknown (Heb. 11 : 8-10) ; 
 simple in that it was only a child-like confidence 
 in the voice of God, who was yet to him the un- 
 known, and with whom through prayer he, like 
 Cornelius, had entered into filial relations. Be- 
 •\rare of understanding the phrase " believed 
 
 4 Now to him that worketh<* is the reward not reck- 
 oned of grace, but of debt. 
 
 5 But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him 
 that justifieth the ungodly, his faith "^ is counted for 
 righteousness. 
 
 6 Even as, David also describeth the blessedness of 
 the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness with- 
 out works, 
 
 . .c Gen. 15 : 6. . 
 
 , . e Hab. 2 : 4. 
 
 God " as equivalent to " believed God's prom- 
 ise."' — (Alford.) ItAvas not belief in a promise, 
 it was personal filial faith in God, Avhich was 
 regnant in Abraham, and which we may well be- 
 lieve would have led him to obey God's voice 
 whether there had been any promise or not. 
 
 4-8. To him that Avorketh the reAvard 
 is not reckoned according to grace, but 
 according to debt. ■' Not grace but debt is the 
 regulative standard according to which his wages 
 are rewarded to such an one." — {31eyer.) If he 
 has rightened himself by his long obedience of 
 the law he stands in no need of grace or favor ; 
 he may claim the divine approbation as a right 
 and the divine reward as wages. — But to him 
 that AVorketh not. That is, who does not 
 work for the purpose of securing the reward. 
 The child of God works, but his work is the 
 result, not the cause of divine grace and the life 
 which grace imparts (Eph. 2 : 10). — But exercises 
 faith in him that rightens the ungodly : 
 i. e., exercises faith in God as one wh(j does 
 righten the un-jfodly, and so, in his ungodli- 
 ness, looks to him as the power by which un- 
 godliness shall be driven out from him, and a 
 new and godly life created in him. — His faith is 
 reckoned for righteousness. Not in lieu of I 
 righteousness ; a meaning which the Greek prepo- 
 sition here used (fi--) never bears. This preposi- 
 tion, used tropically of ideal relations, denotes 
 the aim or end as a condition into which some- 
 thing is brought, the result toward which it 
 tends, the direction of the feelings expressed, 
 and, in general, the effect to be produced. 
 Faith is reckoned to the faithful, not as a substi- 
 tute for righteousness, but as the means or in- 
 strument which in the divine economy tends to 
 righteousness as its result. For the theological 
 notion that God attributes to a man a righteous- 
 ness he does not possess, provided he does pos- 
 sess in lieu of, or as a substitute for it, a certain 
 something called faith, the Apostle's language 
 here gives no support. If a chUd has faith in 
 God, that kind of faith which Abraham had, and 
 which led him to obey the voice of God. going 
 whithersoever it called him, God counts this 
 faith as sure to work out in him a divine right- 
 eousness, as one in spring reckons up the wheat 
 which he anticipates from the seed which he has 
 sown in the ground.— Even as David also 
 describeth, etc. The quotation is from Ps. 
 
Cii. IV.] 
 
 KOMAXS. 
 
 127 
 
 7 Sayine^,' Blessed nrc they whose iniquities are for- 
 given, and whose sins are covered. 
 
 8 lilessed IS the mail to whom the Lord will not 
 impute sin. 
 
 9 toiiieth this blessedness then upon the circumcision 
 on/y. or upon the uncircumcision also ? for we say that 
 faith was reckoned to Abraham tor righteousnes;-. 
 
 10 How was it then reckoned ? when he was in cir- 
 cumcision, or in uncircumcision ? Not in circumcision, 
 but in uncircumcision. 
 
 11 And^ he received the sipn of circumcision, a seal 
 of the righteousness of the faith which he had, yd 
 
 being uncircumcised ; that he might be the father'' of 
 all them that believe, though they be not circumcised ; 
 that risliteousiiess might be imputed unto them also: 
 
 12 And the father ol circumcision to them who are 
 not ol the circumcision only, but who also walk in the 
 steps ot tiiat taith of our father Abraham, which he 
 had, being _)'(7' uncircumcised. 
 
 13 For the promise, that ' he should be the heir of 
 the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through 
 the law, but through the righteousness of faith. 
 
 14 For if J they which are of tlie law be heirs, faith is 
 made void, and the promise made of none eflect: 
 
 f Ps. 3J : 1, 2. . . .g Gen. 17 : 10, 11 . . . .h Luke 19 : 9 ; John 8 : 33, ftc. ; Gal. 3 : 7, 29 
 
 .j Gal. 3 : 18. 
 
 32 : 1, 2, supposed to have been written after the 
 rebuke administered to him by Nathan, and after 
 the lifty-first Psalm. The lifty-tirst Psalm was a 
 eoiifessioii of his sin ; tlie tliirty-seeoiid is the ex- 
 pression of his ihanlvSf^iving for forgiyeness. The 
 two phrases, " whose iniquities are forgiven,"and 
 "whose sins are covered," are not synonymous. 
 The forgiveness of sin is the ransom or deliver- 
 ance from the sin itself; the covering of sin is 
 the pardon or remission of ])enalty and restora- 
 tion of divine favor. Paul cites David as he had 
 before cited Abraham in illustration and support 
 of his doctrine of faith. 
 
 9-12. The Jew, it must be remembered, be- 
 lieved that the grace of God was confined to 
 those who had received and accepted Judaism, as 
 Cliristians have often believed that it is confined 
 to those who have received and accepted Chris- 
 tianity. Paul, still arguing hi support of the univer- 
 saliry of the glad tidings of God's love, proceeds to 
 show that the blessedness of forgiveness throu;,di 
 f;utli, was not contined to the Jewish nation. 
 Aljraham's faith was reckoned to him for right- 
 eousness long before he received circumcision. 
 '• The interval between the recognition of his 
 faith (Gen. 15 : 6) and his circumcision was perhaps 
 as much as twenty-five, certainly not less than 
 (Gen. 1; : 2.5) fourteen years."' — {Alford.) The cir- 
 cumcision came afterwards, as the sign or token 
 by which it was made evident that the person 
 circumcised had entered into filial relations with 
 God, as a seal stamped upon and certifying the 
 righteousness of the faith which he had ; that 
 is. the character springing out of faith possessed 
 by him while he was yet uncircumcised. Thus 
 circumcision became the evidence that he was 
 the father, not merely of the circumcised, but of 
 all those, whether circumcised or not, who exer- 
 cise a faith analogous to his. There is some un- 
 certainty as to the proper grammatical rendering 
 of the laiigua.:e in verse 12 ; but none as to Paul's 
 spititual meaning, viz., that the object of cir- 
 cumcision was to afford a sign and seal of the 
 fact that Abraham is the spiritual father of all 
 those who share his faith and, imitaiin'.: his ex- 
 ample, show forth that faith by obedience. The 
 argument of the Apostle, elliptically put here, 
 
 does not difEer in spirit from that elaborated in 
 Gal. 4 : 21-31. It is implied also that they only 
 really possess the benefits of the circumcision 
 who possess that spiritual life of which the cir- 
 cumcision is a sign or seal. Comp. John 8 : 39 ; 
 Phil. 3 : 3. The modern equivalent of Paul's 
 argument is that no church rite and no ecclesi- 
 astical relationship can take the place of the life 
 of faith, or is necessary to constitute a life of 
 faith. 
 
 13-15. A repetition rather than a continuation 
 of the preceding argument. The promise to- 
 Abraham was not through the law, but through 
 faith ; a fact seen not only in that it antedated 
 the giving of the law, but also in that the object 
 or end of the law was something entirely differ- 
 ent from the fulfillment of the promise. — For 
 not through the law was the promise to 
 Abraham or to his seed. That is, the law 
 was not the instrument by which the fulfilment 
 of that promise was to be worked out ; the 
 promise was not made to him on condition of 
 obedience to an external edict or statute. — That 
 he should be heir of the world. The heir 
 receives as a free gift, he does not earn as a right. 
 
 '' The actual promise (Oen. 12 : 2, 3; 13 : 14-ni IS: IS; 
 
 n : s) was the possession of the land of Canaan. 
 But the Rabbis already had seen, and Paul, who 
 had been brought up in their learning, held fast 
 the truth, that much more was intended in the 
 words which accompany this promise, ' In thee 
 (or in thy seed) shall all the families of the earth 
 be blessed," than the mere possession of Canaan. 
 * * * The inheritance of the world, then, is 
 not the possession of Canaan merely, either 
 Uteralli/, or as a iijpc of a better possession, — but 
 that ultimate, lordship orcr the whole world which 
 Abraham, as the father of the faithful, and 
 Christ, as the Seed of Promise, shall j)ossess : the 
 former figuratively indeed and only implicitly, — 
 the latter personally and actually. See ch. 8 : 17 ; 
 Matt. .5:5; 2 Tun. 2 : 12 ; 1 Cor. 1.5 : 21"— 
 (Alford.) — But through the righteousness of 
 faith. Not through faith separate from char- 
 acter, but throuffh the i)osses8ion of that char- 
 acter which grows out of faith. The heirship of 
 the world is not something external, promised as 
 
128 
 
 KOMAN^S. 
 
 [Cir. IV 
 
 15 Because the law * worketh wrath : for where no ' 
 law is, there is no transgression. 
 
 16 Therefore it is of f'aitti, that it might be by grace ; 
 to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed ; 
 not to that only which is o. the law, but to that also 
 which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of 
 us all, 
 
 17 (As it is written,"* I have made thee a father of 
 many nations,) before him whom he believed, ez>en 
 God, who quickeneth" the dead, and calleth those" 
 things which be not as though they were. 
 
 18 Who against hope believed in hope, that he might 
 become the father of many nations, according to that 
 which was spoken,p So shall thy seed be. 
 
 19 And being not weak in faith, he considered not 
 his own body now dead, when he was about an hun- 
 dred years old, neither yet the deadness'i of Sarah's 
 womb : 
 
 20 He staggered not at the promise of God through 
 unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to 
 God; 
 
 21 And being fully persuaded that, what he had 
 promised, he was able ' also to perform. 
 
 22 And therefore it was imputed to him for right- 
 eousness. 
 
 23 Now 8 it was not written for his sake alone, that it 
 was imputed to him : 
 
 k ch. 5 : 20 llJohn 3 : 4. 
 
 .m Gen. 17 : 5 n Eph. 2 : 1, 5 ...ol Cor. 1 : 28 ; 1 Pet. 2 ; 10 p Gen. 15 : 5. 
 
 18:14; Luke 1 : 37, 46; Heb. 11 : 19....sch. 15 : 4 ; 1 Cor. 10: 11. 
 
 .q Hcb. 11 : 11.... r Gen. 
 
 a reward for obedience to the law, but it is some- 
 thing which falls by the natural law of God unto 
 those whose character is conformed to the divine 
 pattern because in sympathy with the divine 
 mind. — For if they which are of the law, 
 i. e., whose character is a product of the law ; 
 — be heirs, faith is made void. Literally is 
 emptied or made fruitless. If one who has laid 
 hold of God by faith has still to earn God's favor 
 by his works, the faith is valueless ; he might as 
 well have earned that favor by his works without 
 the faith. — And the proimse is made of 
 none effect. More literally, the promise is done 
 away with. There is no inheritance and no 
 promise ; there is only a service and a wage. 
 " What may be termed the substratum of the 
 Apostle's arguments, is the mutually exclusive 
 character of faith and the law, separated as they 
 were by time, belonging to two orders of ideas, 
 and opposed in their effects on the heart of man. " 
 — (Jowett.) — For the law worketh Avrath. 
 Thus the law is in its effects, as in its nature, the 
 opposite of faith. The one works wrath and 
 penalty ; the other a promise and an inheritance. 
 Not merely the wrath of God, though that is 
 included ; but generally, wrath. Wherever there 
 is a clear consciousness of moral law and a 
 recognition of its violation, there the wrath of 
 conscience is aroused against it. If conscience is 
 apathetic it is because there is no clear recogni- 
 tion of the moral law, or no definite application 
 of it to the specific violation. — Bnt where 
 there is no law (literally where law is not) 
 neither is there transgression. The law is 
 a prescribed rule of life and conduct ; if there 
 is no such rule there can be no over-stepping it. 
 Observe the Apostle does not say, where tJie law 
 is not ; he does not refer specifically to the 
 Mosaic statutes. But "where law is not." He 
 does not refer to the time before the Mosaic law, 
 nor to be understood as declaring that compara- 
 tively there was no transgression before the law 
 of Moses ; he is stating an abstract proposition. 
 The existence of sin depends upon the existence 
 of law : — no law, no sin. Nor is this exactly as 
 
 Jowett interprets it, an absolutely imaginary 
 case. There is no divine law against gluttony in 
 the hog ; the hog, therefore, does not commit 
 sin by being a glutton. The exact proportion of 
 sin is always according to the consciousness of 
 the moral law, and this whether it has been 
 revealed in words or not. Thus always the 
 strength of sin is the law (i cor. is : 56). 
 
 lG-22. These verses contain a reiteration, or 
 summary, of the preceding argument, illustrated 
 by a fuller reference to the manifestation of 
 Abraham's faith. The inheritance comes from 
 faith, not works, in order that it might be ac- 
 cording to God, not according to the merit of 
 man, to the end that the inheritance might be 
 confirmed to all the eed of Abraham, Gentile as 
 well as Jew ; for Abraham is the father of all the 
 faithful, whether Gentile or Jew, not of one 
 nation, but of many nations (Gen. n : 5). These 
 nations Paul regards as already standing before 
 the God in whom Abraham believed, "who call- 
 eth those things which are not as though they 
 were." The rest of the argument is but an elu- 
 cidation of the Scripture history, bringing uut 
 more clearly the nature of Abraham's faith, not 
 merely in his first act in leaving his native land 
 at the call of God, but in his whole subsequent 
 career of trust and confidence in God. The 
 reader should remember, however, that even in 
 Abraham this confidence was not attained with- 
 out a spiritual conflict (see Gen. n : n). Compare 
 with Paul's language here the parallel interpre- 
 tation in Heb. 11 : 8-19. 
 
 23-25. Now it was not Avritten for his 
 sake alone that it was reckoned iuit<» 
 him. There is no federal headship in Abraham. 
 We are not inheritors of the promise by reason 
 of Abraham's faith. This truth is not important 
 now, for no Christian sect entertains such an 
 error; but in Paul's time the Jews largely be- 
 lieved that they were the children of God be- 
 cause the children of Abraham (Matt. 3:9; .John 
 8 : 33). — But for our sakes also, unto whom 
 it shall be reckoned, Avho have faith in 
 him that raised Jesus our Lord from the 
 
Ch. IY.] 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 129 
 
 24 But for us ' also, to whom it shall be imputed, if 
 we believe " on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from 
 the dead ; 
 
 25 Who was delivered" for our offences, and was 
 raised ™ again for our justitication. 
 
 t Acts 2: 39.... u Mark 16: 16; John 3 : 1*, 16.... visa. 53: 6, 6; 2 Cor. 5: 21; Heb.9:28; 1 Pet. 2:24; Eev.l:5....w ICor.lB: 17 ; 1 Pet. 1:21. 
 
 dead. It is through our faith, not Abraham's, 
 that we are justitied ; and Abraham's faith 
 serves onlj' as an illustration, au exemplification, 
 of what our faith must be. Isaac, born of " one 
 as icood as dead," serves as a type or sample of 
 Jesus our Lord raised from the dead ; not be- 
 cause the two are pandlel except in this, that he 
 who had faith in Christianity and its promise to 
 the world must needs hope against hope after 
 the death of Christ, even as Abraham after he 
 had reached old age without an heir. — Who 
 was delivered up for our trespasses. 
 Not primarily by Judas who betrayed him, and 
 Pilate who surrendered him, but by himself 
 (John 10 : 17, 18; 18 : ii), acting in accordance with 
 the will of his Father, by whom thus he was in a 
 true sense delivered over to death. — Aud was 
 raised for our justificatiou : or righteidng . 
 I doubt whether any doctrinal stress can be laid 
 upon Paul's antithesis here, though it recurs 
 more than once in his writings. The incarna- 
 tion, the passion, the resurrection, are all treated 
 by him as integral parts of the one great spiritual 
 force by which humanity is ransomed from the 
 death of siu and raised unto newness of life, 
 
 Sometimes, -43 in Col. 1 : 14, redemption is repre- 
 sented as afforded only through the death of 
 Christ ; sometimes, as in Rom. .5 : 10 ; G : 9 ; 
 1 Cor. 15 : 17, redemption from sin is repre- 
 sented as being dependent upon Christ's resur- 
 rection. If it is said that the crucifixion was 
 necessary to satisfy the sense of justice in God 
 and man and that we can not be saved without 
 this satisfaction, it may equally be said that the 
 resurrection is necessary to give any ground of 
 ht)pe, either m God or man, of that new and 
 divine life which is the end of redemption ; and 
 that without such hope, springing from faitli, 
 not merely in a crucified but also in a triumi)hant 
 redeemer, there can be no salvation (Rom. 8 : 24). 
 Fine distinctions between the different processes 
 in the whole redemptive work, between that 
 effected by the death and that effected by the 
 resurrection of Christ, belong rather to scholastic 
 than to vital theology ; and it is perhaps enough 
 for us to say that a comprehensive faith, a faith 
 like that of Abraham, full of hope, will lay hold 
 equally of Christ as crucified, and so subject 
 unto death ; and of Christ risen, and so victor- 
 ious over death. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE END OF SACRIFICE. 
 
 [verses 1-11.] 
 
 Being therefore justified 'by faith, -let us have* peace with God through our Lord Jesus i i Gr. out of. 
 Christ ; through whom also we have had our access "by faith into this grace wherein we stand ;l ^'aA^eliav" ' 
 and Met us* ^rejoice in hope of the elorv of God. And not only so, but "let us* also ^rejoice!* For "let us have" 
 
 .,,., ,,". . T -,.-,] ■'s^d ws have" 
 
 m our tribulations : knowing that tribulation worketh patience ; and patience probation ; and j and in marg. 2 
 probation, hope: and hope putteth not to shame ; because the love of God hath been shed 
 abroad in our hearts through the 'Holy Ghost which was given unto us. For while we were 
 yet weak, in due season Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one 
 die : for perad venture for "the good man some one would even dare to die. But God com- 
 mendeth his own love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much 
 more then, being now justified "by his blood, shall we be saved from the wrath of God through 
 him. For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, 
 much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved "by his life ; and not only so, "but we also 
 rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the recon- 
 ciliation. 
 
 read Many 
 clent authorities 
 read let vs have. 
 So in verses 2, 3 
 for " let us " read 
 "we" (twice). — 
 Am. Com, 
 
 3 Some ancient au- 
 thorities omit 6y 
 faith. 
 
 4 Or, we rejoice, 
 
 5 Gr. glory. 
 
 6 Or, we also re' 
 joice. 
 
 7 Or, Boly Spirit : 
 and so through- 
 out this book. 
 
 8 Or, that which w 
 good. 
 
 Omit marg. 8 
 ("that which is 
 good "), — Am. 
 Com. 
 
 9 Gr. in. 
 
 10 Gr. hut also glo- 
 rying. 
 
 In the fir.st half of this chapter (verses 1-11) Paul embodies the Pauline 
 interpretation of suffering : it is in one Avord, redemption. The end of suf- 
 fering in the individual is discipline. It works out patience, or the spirit of 
 endurance ; and endurance makes proof of character ; and character so tried 
 and proved affords a basis for a hope that is not illusive, and will not make ashamed. All 
 this, the reader observes, presupposes faith, a spiritual perception of the value of right- 
 eousness as the end of life, God dwelling in the soul, as the power that makes for right- 
 eousness, Christ as the manifestation of God as Personal Love. 
 
 But suffering is not merely a personal discipline ; it is not merely the method by 
 which the individual sufferer is redeemed ; it is also the spiritual force or power by which 
 one soul redeems another. Suffering borne by one for his own spiritual development is 
 discipline ; suffering borne by one for the sake of the spiritual development of another is 
 sacrifice. And the end of sacrifice, as of discipline, is spiritual development, character, 
 righteousness, oneness with God. In interpreting Paul's doctrine of sacrifice, the reader 
 must keep continually in mind that to Paul the only real evil is sin, not suffering ; that 
 the end of forgiveness is the remission of sin not of penalty ; and that, accordingly, the end 
 of sacrifice, as of discipline, is deliverance from sin, not from punishment. In this, Paul 
 teaches nothing new ; he simply reiterates what was the doctrine of the Old Testament 
 prophets and of the Four Gospels. Fundamental to any true apprehension of Paul's doc- 
 trine of sacrificial suffering is the recognition of the two-fold fact that the end of forgive- 
 ness is not primarily the remission of j^unishment but the remission of sins, and that 
 Christ suffered not to let us off from penalty, but to emancipate us from sin.' Thou shalt 
 call his name Jesus, said the angel, for he shall save his people from their sins. The Lord 
 hath laid on him, says Isaiah, the iniquity of us all. He is the Lamb of God, says John, 
 which taketh away the sin of the world. The blood of the New Testament, says Christ, is 
 
 ' See Introduction, pp. 68, 69. 
 
Cir. v.] * ROMANS. 131 
 
 shed I'ur many for the remission of sins.' When, in these and kindred passages, we substi- 
 tute punishment i'or sin, when we suppose that lie is caUed Jesus because lie saves his 
 people from their punishment, that the Lord laid on him the punishment of us all, that he 
 is the Lamb of God that beiirs the punishment of the world, that his blood is shed for the 
 remission of punishment, we take out of the Bible what it does say, and put into it what it 
 does not sjiy. The Gospel does not promise deliverance from all punishment ; it does 
 promise deliverance from all sin. It thus meets our highest and holiest aspirations. For 
 what, in our higher nu)ments, we dread is not punishment l)ut sin ; what we desire is not 
 deliverance from punishment, but deliverance from sin. There is no father nor mother 
 that, looking out into life, does not fear for son and daughter sin far more than suffering ; 
 nil ])atriot who does not dread national degradation more than national crucifixitm ; no 
 church-member that would not welcome pain and ol)lo([uy in the cliurch rather than 
 apostasy and spiritual death. 
 
 Now, this deliverance of the world and this deliverance of each individual from the 
 power and the dominion of sin is wrought, not primarily and chiefly through intellectual 
 apprehension of truth, not primarily by the example and the life of another ; it is wrought 
 by sacrifice, wrought by suffering. The cup which Christ passed to his disciples is the cup 
 of his bloody and although it is true that this figure of blood has been materialized, and so 
 made odious and revolting to the imagination, yet it is also true that every spiritual teach- 
 ing of the Bible has at times been materialized, and, when materialized, made odious. The 
 truth is not to be rejected because it has been degraded. There is no possible way by 
 which one can save another except by pouring something of one's own personality and ex- 
 perience into the vacant soul, reaching out the real hand that has the tremulousness of 
 sympathy in it to uplift the one that is below. All redemption, all uplifting, is but this 
 pouring out of one life into another life ; and there is only one door that allows it — the 
 door of suft'ering. Forgiveness of sins, if it merely means remission of penalty, jJerhaps 
 might be achieved without a sacrifice. But if forgiveness of sins means really delivering 
 another from his sin, that never can be accomplished without pain. When the nation has 
 given itself over to believe a lie, to write liberty on its banners, and slavery on human 
 lives, death is inevitable if there be not found men and women who are %villing to pour 
 out their lives that they may preserve it from death and redeem it from sin. When 
 the church is threatened with apostasy, endangered, corrupted, and degraded, there 
 is no hope for it through painless preaching. It lives only as there are men that are 
 willing to pour their lives out into the church and for the church. The blood of the 
 martyrs is the .seed of the church. No redemption is possible without suffering. The 
 Superintendent of the Inebriate Asylum at Binghaniton, N. Y., bore testimony to this 
 li'Uth when he said : "Some men are sent here under compulsion — almost driven here by 
 their friends ; and no such man is ever cured. No man ever has gone from this asylum 
 cureil of his inebriacy unless there was .some one — a sister, a mother, a wife, a maiden — 
 who prayed for him, hoped for him, and wept for him, at home." The great redemptive 
 power in life is the power of a .><ufFering heart. No church can be lifted up into a higher 
 plane except by a prophet who feels in his soul the pain, the shame, the humiliation, of all 
 that is false and evil in the church. No child Avas ever .siived by an unsuffering mother; 
 nu nation by unsuffering patriots; no church by an unsuffering pastor; and, we say it 
 reverently, the world could not be Siived by an unsuffering God. He might take off the 
 penalty ; he might let us off ; but he can not pour his own life into u.s, so as to make us in 
 
 ' Matt. 1 : 21 ; Isaiah 53 : 6 ; John 1 : 29 ; Matt. 26 : 28. 
 
133 KOMANtS. [Ch. V. 
 
 very truth sons of God, unless he pours himself into us through a wounded, riven, broken 
 heart. The angel that redeems Peter must go into the prison that he may lead Peter out. 
 The crucifixion was not an accident, an incident, an occasion ; it was not something arti- 
 ficial wrought by God for an artificial end ; it was in the very nature of the case that the 
 race could not be saved by a Redeemer who did not go down into the race, share its experi- 
 ences, know its life, feel pressed by the burden of its degradation. 
 
 But can God sufter / Rather ask, can God be love and not suft'er I Can love look on 
 the sins and sufferings (jf its loved ones and not sufter I God is the great, the infinite, the 
 eternal Lover ; and all the elements that enter into the liuman experience of love are but 
 the hints of the great tides of emotion that beat and throb in the heart of God. A soul 
 without the power of love would be like an instrument on which no minor chord could be 
 played. The violoncello is the sweetest instrument of the orchestra because there is most 
 pathos in it. That love is sweetest, divinest, in which there is greatest power of sufi^ering 
 with and for another. We are so selfish ; and yet surely we do know that sorrow an<l 
 blessedness are not antagonistic ; that they are not contraries ; that the highest bliss is the 
 bliss of great tears. If God should say to us, " I will take from your heart the power of 
 pain, and from your eyes all future tears ; you shall look on the sorrows of others and not feel 
 them ; you shall recognize humanity's heart throb, and your heart shall not throb ; you shall 
 behold life's woes, and your eye shall glisten with no tear, and your heart shall feel no pain," 
 who would not, with clasped hands, cry out to God, " Oh ! give me back the blessedness of 
 tears !" Every experience of pain with and for another is one round in the ladder whereby 
 we climb up to the heart of a suffering God. The atonement is not a contrivance by which^ 
 through the pain or sacrifice of a third party, God and man are reconciled. In all the 
 dismal history of human thinking nothing is more dismal than this : in all the spiritual 
 degradation of mankind no evidence of degradation more terrible than this : that we have 
 taken the truth that God is a God of suft'ering love, and have turned.it into the falsehood 
 that he can be induced to forgive his children only by the suftering love of Another. The 
 Lamb that was slain was slain from the foundation of the world. From the day when sin 
 first entered into the world the pain and blessedness of sacrifice entered into the heart of 
 God, and in the heart of God it will abide until he whose manifestation was in Christ the 
 Lord shall see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied. The end of sacrifice is deliverance 
 from sin. This truth opened briefly in the first part of this chapter is more fully devel- 
 oped as the personal and spiritual experience of the Apostle in the eighth chapter. 
 
Ch. v.] 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 133 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THEREFORE" being lustitieil bv faith, we have 
 peace with Goil tlirougli our Lonl Jesus Christ : 
 2 By whom '' also we have access by faith into this 
 grace wherein we stand, ami rejoice ' in hope of the 
 glory of God. 
 
 3 And not only so, but we glory ■' in tribulations also : 
 knowing that tribulation worketh patience ; 
 
 4 And patience, experience ; and exiterience, hope ; 
 
 5 And hope " maketh not ashamed ; because the love 
 of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost,' 
 which is given unto us. 
 
 alsa.32:17; Eph. 2:14; Col. 1 :20. ...b John 14 : 6. .. .o Heb. 3:6. . . .d Matt. 5 : 11. 12 ; James 1 ; 2, 12. .. .o Phil. 1.20. .. .fEph. 1 : 13,14. 
 
 Ch. .5: 1-11. THH FRlillS OF JUSTII 'ICATION 1!Y 
 Fvri'll. The fruit op the spuut is peace ; of the 
 
 lAW IS SPIRITUAL CONFLICT. — OF TUE SPlBIT IS ONE- 
 NESS wiTu God ; of the law is sep.\ration from 
 God.— Of the spirit is jot ; of the law is remorse. 
 — The Christian more than conqueror in tribu- 
 lation : IT yields uim patience, proof of charac- 
 ter, invincible hope.— Christ's death satisfies 
 God's love, not his wrath. — Christ's death recon- 
 ciles ; HIS LIFE vivifies. 
 
 1, 2. Therefore being riijhtened by 
 faith, we have peace with God through 
 our Lord Jesus Christ. Some readings give 
 let us Jiave peace, aud this is adopted by the 
 New Version. The difference is not very great ; 
 and there is strong manuscript autliority for the 
 revised reading ; yet I can not but agree with 
 Alford that "every internal consideration tends 
 to impugn it." The more positive form is more 
 in the spirit of Paul. If we are to righten our- 
 selves, by compelling ourselves to reluctant obe- 
 dience to a law that is above us, and that runs 
 counter to our inclination and our will, it is evi- 
 dent we can not possess peace, but must live in a 
 continual battle, in the condition described by 
 Paul in the closing half of the seventh chapter. 
 If righteousness is wrought out in us by a divine 
 spirit working in us both to will and to do of 
 God's good pleasure, if our supreme desire is 
 that this result may be achieved for us in and by 
 our co-operation, then we have peace with God, 
 who is no longer a law-giver with whom we are 
 at variance, but a shepherd whom we delight to 
 follow, a gardener whose training and whose dis- 
 cijjliue lifts us up into the air and the sunlight, a 
 father whose children we rejoice to be. Peace is 
 the product and faith is the cause of asjjontaneous 
 life. — Through whom also we had access 
 by faith into this grace wherein we stand. 
 Observe tliat the access i.s represented as an ac- 
 compli.shcd fact, and the standing as a present 
 relation. In Paul's conception of Christ's work, { 
 it is never chiefly either to deliver us from a 
 future penalty or to bring us to a future glory ; 
 always to redeem us from a jiresent sin, the ter- I 
 ribh; shadow of which grows darker and darker I 
 until it ends in an impenetrable night ; and to 
 bring us into a present light, which grows 
 brighter and brighter unto the perfect day. — 
 And rejoice, or, Let us rejoice, either read- 
 ing is admissible. — In hope of the glory of 
 God (comp. Rom. 7 : vj). The glory (jf (iod is not 
 
 merely the fuller revelation of God to us in an- 
 other life, it is the manifestation of the Son of 
 God in us. We live in hope of the glory which 
 shall be revealed in us (Rom. 8: is); that glory 
 which Jesus Christ hhnself manifested by his 
 ! perfect life and character (john n : 4-6) ; and of 
 which we by our lives and character have come 
 
 short (Rom. 3 : is). 
 
 3-5. And not only so. Access unto grace 
 j and hope of ])erfcct glory is not all. The life 
 that is imparted is one which turns even the sor- 
 row of life into joy, because it converts what 
 seemed to be the bitterness of life hito beneficent 
 discipline. — But we glory also in tribula- 
 tions. Literally in the pressure ; that is, in the 
 evils which press upon us. Coming into sympa- 
 thy with God, and looking upon life in some 
 measure as he does, we welcome this discipline 
 for the results which it promises. — Knowing 
 that the tribulation worketh patience 
 (James 1 . i). Paticuce Can not be wrought into the 
 character by any jjroccss of instruction ; it can 
 only be achieved by actual endurance. — And 
 patience proof. That is, proof of the charac- 
 ter tried by tribulation. "Proof," says Bengel, 
 "is the quality of that man who has been 
 proved." As heat gives quality to steal, so trib- 
 ulation to man. — And proof hope. That is, 
 the hope of the glory of God ; not of seeing his 
 glory in some future state, but of sharing his 
 glory by becoming partaker of the divine nature. 
 — And hope putteth not to shame. If this 
 hope rests upon our having passed through cer- 
 tain emotional experiences accepted certain arti- 
 cles of belief, or submitted ourselves to certain 
 church ritual, it breaks down in the hour of 
 actual trial and brings us to shame, a shame 
 which is but a prophecy of that which will over- 
 whelm us when at the last day Christ says : De- 
 part from me, ye that work initpiity. But the 
 hoi)e of becoming perfected in divine life which 
 is the product of actual proof of the staying and 
 supporting quality of that life iu the experiences 
 of tribulations is one that will not mock us in 
 new trials, nor in the day of judgment. — Be- 
 cause the love of God is shed abroad iu 
 our hearts. This divine love hi our hearts, 
 illuminating and inspiring our lives is the secret 
 of all true divine life, and to it at every turn of 
 his argument Paul recurs airain and again. — 
 Through the Holy Spirit which has been 
 
134 
 
 TIOMAXS. 
 
 [Ch. V 
 
 6 For when we were yet without strength, iu due s 
 time Christ died for the ungodly. 
 
 7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die ; yet 
 peradventure for a good man some would even dare to 
 die. 
 
 8 But Godcommendeth his love toward us, in that, 
 while '' we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 
 
 9 -Much more then, being now justified by his blood,' 
 we shall be saved from J wrath through him. 
 
 g Gal. 4 : 4. . . .h John 15 : 13 ; 1 Pet. 3 : IS ; 1 John 3 : 16 i Heb. 9 : 14, 3-2 j 1 Thess. 1 : 10. 
 
 given unto us. This might perhaps mean 
 through a holj- spirit ; that is, a spirit of holiness 
 imparted to us ; but Paul's substantially univer- 
 sal usage justifies, if it does not require, the 
 other and ordinary interpretation. This is Paul's 
 first mention of the Holy Spirit in the Epistle, 
 and his phraseology here confirms the view that 
 the righteousness of God given to man in justifi- 
 cation, is God himself, given to be not merely 
 the recipient's companion, but the indwelling- 
 power of his life. 
 
 6-9. For while we were yet without 
 strength. Not merely weak. Nor is the mean- 
 ing, merely, as Jowett, that " The love of God. 
 like that of a parent to a child, was called forth 
 by our helplessness." The reader must con- 
 stantly remember that the method of the Gospel 
 for the redemption of man is set in contrast in 
 Paul's mind, and in his writings, with the methods 
 of Pharisaism. The latter declares that we earn 
 God's favor by our obedience to God's law ; Paul 
 declares that when we were without strength to 
 render such obedience Christ died for us (comp. 
 ch. 8 : 3, 4). — In due season. In the time ap- 
 pointed and proposed by God for the consum- 
 mation of his gracious design (comp. Gal. 4 : 4). 
 — Christ died for the ungodly, i. e., in behalf 
 of the ungodly. The exact grammatical meaning, 
 as given in Robinson's Lexicon {vTiio), might well 
 be substituted ; for the ungodly is "with the 
 idea of jarotection, care, favor, benefit, as ever 
 bending over a person or thing, and thus ward- 
 ing off what might fall upon and harm it." 
 Observe the Apostle does not say "for theM'e«^•.'' 
 The weakness of which he has spoken in the first 
 clause does not prevent those who arc without 
 strength from being wigodhj. — For scarcely 
 for a righteous man Avill one die ; yet per- 
 adventure for a good man some Avould 
 even dare to die. There is some question 
 whether any distinction between the good man 
 and the righteous is intended by Paul ; whether 
 he does not use the two words simply to avoid 
 verbal infelicitj". It seems probable, however, 
 that a contrast was intended between the just 
 man who simply acts according to what justice 
 requires, and the good man who superadds to 
 justice kindness and benevolence. — But God 
 commendeth his love toward us, in that 
 while Ave Avere yet sinners Christ died for 
 us. Paul here, as in the N. T. everywhere, 
 presents a view of the death of Christ utterly 1 
 
 inconsistent with the notion that it was necessary 
 in order to arouse the love and mercy of God 
 toward his children. The love of God was the 
 cause, the death of Christ was the effect. Comp. 
 John 3 : 1(5 ; Eph. 3 : 4, .5 ; 1 John 4 : 9, 10.— 
 3Iuch more then, being Tightened in his 
 blood. It is not then merelj* hy his teaching, so 
 making truth plainer, nor bj- his example, so 
 making the law clearer, that Christ saves his 
 people. This conception of Christianity makes 
 it after all only a new form of Pharisaism ; right- 
 eousness is then still obtained by obedience to 
 law, though that law is more clearly interpreted 
 and set forth. According to Paul, it is in tlie 
 blood of Christ we are rightened. Comp. John 
 6 : 53-5(3 ; CoL 1 : 14 ; 1 John 1:7; Rev. 1 : 5, 
 There is a significance in the Greek preposition 
 (ii), i?i, here used. It is iii, not merelj" hy, the 
 blood of Christ we are saved ; as, and onl\- as, 
 we come into particii)ation in the sjiirit of his 
 self-sacrifice and so become one with him. So 
 he tells us that unless we take up the cross and 
 follow him, thus sharing his cross with him, we 
 can not be his disciple. — We shall be saved 
 through him from urath. Two meanings to 
 this verse are certainly possible. Wrath ("';'; 0» 
 is primarily the character, or disposition, which 
 results from impulses ; hence the meaning may 
 be : We are saved from our own natural and 
 basilar passions. Paul's ordinary usage, how- 
 ever, confirms the other and more common in- 
 terpretation : We are saved from the wrath of 
 God. The meaning then will be : If God has so 
 loved us as to give his only-begotten Son for us 
 while we were yet sinners, and if we accept this 
 gift and enter by faith into the spirit of it, we 
 shall have no occasion to fear that wrath of God 
 which is the final and solemn sanction of all law, 
 and under fear of which legalism alwaj's cowers. 
 10, 11. For if while Ave AA'ere enemies 
 AA'e Avere reconciled to God through the 
 death of his Sou. If God has given his own Son 
 that we may be lifted out of the condition of en- 
 mity and raised us up and made us to sit together 
 In heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Eph. 2 : i-«). — 
 Much more, being reconciled, Ave shall 
 be saved in his life. Not through (c5(«), but 
 in (ti). To be saved is not, in Paul's thought, 
 equivalent to being delivered from a future pun- 
 ishment. Redemption has a much larger mean- 
 ing to him. If by God's love we are reconciled 
 to God, by participation in the life of God's Son, 
 
Ch. v.] 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 135 
 
 lo For if, when we were enemies, we were recon- 
 ciled to God by the death of his Son, much'' more, 
 being reconciled, we shall be saved by ' his Ufe. 
 
 n And not only SO, but we also joy " in God, through 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we liave now received 
 the atonement. 
 
 .1 John 14 : 19. . . .m Hab. 3 : 18. 
 
 we, shall be made children of God. Compare 
 Rom. 8 : 1.5-17. — And not only so, but we 
 also rejoice in tiod. The fear of God is 
 taken away (i John 4 : is) ; we are reconciled to 
 God, we have a hope of coming into the per- 
 fected glory of God (verse 2), and even now and 
 here we rejoice in God, not merely in the posses- 
 sion of him, as in a child's ownership of his 
 father, but in a life hidden in him and drawing 
 all its inspiration from him (coi s: 3). — Through 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom 
 
 we have received the reconciliation. In 
 
 the Old Version the word "atonement" was 
 used. It is a curious fact that this word, about 
 which such fierce theological battlings have oc- 
 curred, occurs only once in the N. T., and even 
 there is an infelicitous translation which a better 
 scholarship has expunged, substituting there- 
 for the word reconciliation. The Greek word 
 occurs elsewhere, but is always rendered " recon- 
 ciliation " (i Cor. 5 : 18-20; 1 Cor. 7 : ll). 
 
1 Gr. an act of 
 
 righteousness. 
 
 2 Some ancient au- 
 thorities omit of 
 the gift. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 [continued.] 
 
 PAUL'S DOCTRINE OF THE FALL. 
 
 [verses 13-21.] 
 
 Thebefore, as through one man ein entered into the world, and death through sin ; and eo 
 death passed unto all men, for that all sinned : — for until the law sin was in the world : but sin 
 is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even 
 over them that had not sinned after the likeness of Adam's transgression, who is a figure of 
 him that was to come. But not as the trespass, so also is the free gift. For if by the trespass 
 of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God, and the gift by the grace of the 
 one man, Jesus Christ, abound unto the many. And not as through one that sinned, so is the 
 gift : for the judgement came of one unto condemnation, but the free gift came of many tres- 
 passes unto 'justification. For if, by the trespass of the one, death reigned through the one ; 
 much more shall they that receive the abundance of grace and -of the gift of righteousness reign 
 in life through the one, ei^en Jesus Christ. So then as through one trespass the judgement came 
 unto all men to condemnation ; even so through one act of righteousness the free gift came 
 unto all men to justification of life. For as through the one man's disobedience the many were 
 made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one shall the many be made righteous. 
 And 'the law came in beside, that the trespass might abound ; but where sin abounded, grace 
 did abound more exceedingly : that, as sin reigned in death, even so might grace reign through 
 righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
 
 It is, as I have intimated in the Introduction, a mistake to read the letters of Paul as 
 though they were the writings of a philosopher interested in perfecting and propounding a 
 science of God and his government. It is a still greater mistake to transfer him to the 
 nineteenth century, and read his letters in the light of modern philosophy ; to find in 
 them on the one hand a prophecy and endorsement of evolution, or on the other, a proph- 
 ecy and condemnation of it. Paul is not a scientific writer. He deals with all problems 
 of life practically ; as a moralist and a Christian missionary ; not scientifically, as a student 
 and a philosopher. His object in this chapter is not to set forth a scientific theory of the his- 
 torical origin of evil, but to produce in the minds of both his Gentile and his Jewish readers 
 a conviction of the universality of sin, as a means of awakening in them faith in a univer- 
 sal redemption. He shows that sin, death, and salvation are race, not merely Jewish facts. 
 It is true that Paul assumes and employs certain profound philosophical principles, and it 
 is quite legitimate for the student to look beneath the surface of his writings, and seek to 
 disc(ner those principles. But in doing this, if we are to understand Paul's thought, we 
 must first understand his feeling ; we must realize that his aim is practical, not scientific, 
 that he is dealing with the spiritual, not with the ethnological or the anthropological facts 
 of the universe. 
 
 A comparatively modem philosophy of the origin of the various forms of life in the 
 universe, has gradually assumed such a form as to impinge very directly upon the tradi- 
 tional views of the origin if not of the nature of man. This philosophy is, briefly, that all 
 life has been evolved from a common origin ; that all the variations in life have been 
 developed from this common origin by A'ery slow processes, processes similar to those which 
 are now going on under our eyes ; that under the combined influence of the law of hered- 
 ity, the variation of individuals, and the struggle for existence, with the survival of the 
 
t'Ji. V.J ' KO.MAXS. 137 
 
 fittest and tlie inevituHe decay and diatli nf tlic untittest, all pro<,'ress from the kivvest to 
 tho lii},'liest sperics lias been made ; that not (jnly the physical man has been thus evolved 
 I'liim a Inwt-r animal order, but the moral and spiritual man from the lower animal in- 
 stincts. The distinctive peculiarities of man have been successively traced back to their 
 origin in animal faculties. Language.? " As monkeys certainly understand niiK li tliat is 
 said to them by man, and as in a strife of nature they utter signal cries of danger to their 
 fellows, it does iKit appear altogether incredible that some unusually wi.se, ape-like animal 
 should have thought of imitating the growl of a beast of prey, so as to indicate to his 
 fellow-niiinkeys the nature of the expected danger. And this would have been a first step 
 in the formation of the language." Conscience ? "The following propcsition seems to me 
 in a high degree probable, namely that any animtil whatever, endowed with well-marked 
 social instincts, would inevitably ac<|uire a moral sense, a conscience, as soon as its intel- 
 lectual powers should become as well developed, or nearly as well, as in man." The idea 
 of God ? " The tendency in savages to imagine that natural objects and agencies are 
 animated by spiritual or living essences, is perhaps illustrated by a little fact which I once 
 witnessed. My dog, a full-grown and very sensible animal, was lying on the lawn during 
 a hot and still day ; but at a little distance a slight breeze occasionally moved an open, 
 parasol, which would have been wholly disregarded by the dog had any one stood near it. 
 As it was, every thnu that the parasol slightly moved, the dog growled fiercely and barked. 
 He must, I think, have reasoned to himself in a rapid and unconscious manner, that move- 
 ment without any apparent cause indicates the presence of some strange liWng agent, and 
 no stranger had a right to be in his territory." These quotations from Darwin's "Descent 
 of Man," which might easily be re-enforced by analogous ones from Herbert Spencer, Pro- 
 fessor Tylor, and others, may serve to illustrate the doctrine of evolution as employed to 
 account for the origin of man. This is, in brief, that the moral capacities of man have 
 been evolved by a long and slow process from animal instincts ; that the race has grown as 
 the child grows. The child has not, in the cradle, any conception of God, any habit of 
 prayer, any recognition even of right and wrong. The mother inspires the child with faith 
 in God, teaches the child to pray, develops in it a discriminating conscience ; and she does 
 this by evolving these higher opinions and sentiments from lower or lesser ones. " If you 
 strike your brother," says the mother, " mamma is displeased with you." Thus, appealing 
 to ajjprobativeness, she arouses conscience. So, according to Darwin, conscience in man 
 has been developed out of approbativeness, so, belief in God from superstitious belief in 
 gnomes and fairies. 
 
 Now the first thing the candid student of Paul must recognize is the fact that Paul 
 does not even so much as consider this question. He nowhere discusses the origin of man. 
 He apparently accepts the idea common among the Hebrews of his time ; but he does not 
 argue its truth. There are a few indirect allusions to the fall of Adam as in 1 Cor. 15 : 22, 
 " As in Adam all die ; " but they are introduced only casually and for purposes of illustra- 
 tion. In this fifth chapter of Romans more emphasis is apparently laid upon the creation 
 of man perfect and his voluntary and historic fall ; but even this passage is parenthetical ; 
 it is not an argument for the doctrine of the fall, but an argument addres.sed to those who 
 believed in the fall, for the jjurpose of commending to them what they did not believe, 
 namely, the universality of redemption. Paul's doctrine of man and of redemption is 
 certainly consistent with the traditional view of the origin of man as a sinless being, formed 
 out of the dust of the earth and receiving miraculously a divine nature by the inbreathing 
 of God. But it is not inconsistent with the doctrine that man was gradually evolved by 
 long and slow proce.s.ses out of a lower and animal order ; though it is inconsistent, utterly 
 
138 ROMANS. [Ch. V. 
 
 and irreconcilably inconsistent, with the notion that sin is a crudeness, an immaturity, a 
 remnant of the lower animal order clinging to man as the chrysalis clings to the wings and 
 feelers of the imperfectly released butterfly, an incident, a necessary incident of his upward 
 development. According to Paul, here and everywhere, sin is a violation of God's law, 
 conscious, deliberate, willful ; never an attendant circumstance upon growth, but a real and 
 actual fall. On the fall of Adam he lays no stress ; on the perpetual fall of every man who 
 sins against God's law he puts all the tremendous emphasis of his intense nature. That 
 man is an animal he nowhere r^uestions. He even assumes if he does not assert it. The 
 seventh chapter of Romans is based on the assumption of man's animal nature. He does 
 not even deny that man has been gradually by slow processes evolved from a lower and 
 purely animal existence. This question was not known in his time, and he does not know 
 it. But he asserts with tremendous power that man is not a mere animal now ; that in 
 the flesh, and above it, is an I that is more than the flesh ; that this I recognizes a higher 
 law than that of the animal ; that it is capable of a higher obedience ; that it has a reason 
 of its own, and a law of its own ; and that when it deliberately yields to the lower nature, 
 and goes down into it, and dwells in it, disobeying the law of its own true and divine 
 nature, it not only sins against itself and against God, but that it therein and thereby sows 
 the seed of all the tremendous harvest of guilt and death which follows. 
 
 AVhether I was evolved from an animal or not, I am an animal now — a vertebrate 
 animal of the order of mammalia ; backlione, brain, and nervous system, heart, arterial sys- 
 tem, stomach and digestive organs, all analogous to the physical systems of other vertebrate 
 animals of the order of mammalia, and possessing with all the appetites and passions of the 
 animal, all his physical impulses, all his social and semi-material instincts. But I am also 
 more than an animal ; whether that more came indirectly by a process of develojjment 
 from lower instincts, or directly by a supernatural gift, is not religiously material. I am 
 what I am ; and this, not my origin, determines my duty. For duty is a word of to-day 
 and to-morrow, not of yesterday. Whatever I may have been yesterday, to-day I am a son 
 of God, and it doth not yet appear what I shall be to-morrow. The doctrine of evolution, 
 that man ascended from a brute, does not involve the conclusion that he is only a refined 
 and educated brute. If it did, it would be evidently and palpably false. Man is a perfect 
 animal, but a perfect animal is not a man. To say of one he is a perfect brute is not to 
 compliment him. There is in man a nature higher than the animal, wherever it came 
 from. We have it, or, rather, we are it. And this that we have, or are, determines alike 
 our duty and our sin. The duty is always and everywhere to be more than an animal — 
 superior to the animal, master of the animal within us. The sin is always and everywhere 
 committed when we fall from our high estate and allow the animal within us, which 
 should be our servant, to become our master. Neither the duty on the one side, nor the 
 sin on the other, is lessened in the slightest degree by the scientific hj'pothesis that Ijoth 
 the physical organization and the spiritual nature have been evolved by long processes 
 from a lower organization. That there is ever a conflict between the higher and the lower, 
 life abundantly illustrates. Virtue lies always in the victory of the higher ; sin lies 
 always in the A'ictory of the lower. That there is to-day a great gap between the mere 
 animal and man is not only frankly stated, but ^agorously asserted, by the most earnest 
 advocates of evolutionism. " The difference," says Darwin, " between the mind of the 
 lower man and the highest animal is immense." When man steps across this chasm and 
 becomes again an animal, he falls. Wliether Adam thus fell six thousand years ago or not 
 is matter of quite secondary importance. We all fall thus now. 
 
 Something such, it seems to me, would be Paul's method of meeting the immoral and 
 
Ch. v.] ' ROMANS. 139 
 
 illogical deductions sometimes made from evolutionary philosophy, that man is only a 
 higher order of animal, and sin only an incident in the progress of his development. This 
 parenthesis in his general line of argument is wholly misinterpreted if it is read as an aigu- 
 ment for the scientific accuracy of the first chapters of Genesis as an account of the origin 
 of sin. It is addressed to those who so regarded these chapters, and it is addressed to them 
 for the purpose of showing that, according to their own philoso])hy, law and sin and death 
 e.xisted before Judaism, and were as universal as the race, anil therefore, presumptively, 
 grace and redemption must exist after and outside of Judaism, and be also co-exten.sive 
 with the race. 
 
 The meaning of Paul in this somewhat enigmatical paragraph may be, perhaps, best 
 apprehended by a restatement uf the entire argument up to this point, and including this 
 paragraph, the latter paraphrastically rendered ; we thus see it in its relations, and in ita 
 true perspective. That argument may be put in a paragraph thus : Righteousness of 
 character can never be worked out in man by obedience to an external law. The Roman 
 has tried it and failed. The Jew has tried it and failed. This is not God's method 
 of character-building. That method is the impartation of himself to the soul that is 
 willing by faith to submit to his influence. It was thus that Abraham was built up 
 in gi)dliness ; thus all his descendants must be built up. In this process each soul 
 suffers for itself ; each for its neighbor ; Christ for all ; for only through the door of 
 suffering, in giver and receiver, can character be imparted. But this is not a process 
 confined to a chosen people. It is as universal as humanity. As law and sin and 
 death are wide as the human race, so must be grace, and sacrifice, and redemptioru 
 Through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death, and so death 
 came upon all men, because all men have sinned. For prior to the Mosaic law sin was 
 in the world, although men made no account of it, because there was no moral standard 
 to work in them conviction of sin ; nevertheless, sin was in the world, as is evident 
 from the fact that death reigned even from Adam to Moses ; men sinned, therefore, though 
 they did not disobey a specific law of God as Adam did, albeit his experience is a type of 
 tempted, fallen, and simiing humanity. But, to return : through one man sin entered into 
 the world, and death through &'m, and so death came upon all men because all men have 
 sinned. But tlie free gift is not merely as the transgression. For, in the first place, if, as a 
 result of the transgression of one, many died, much more, since God is gracious, the grace of 
 God and the gift in his grace, that, namely, of Jesus Christ, has abounded unto many ; 
 moreover, the judgment which has grown out of the one sin resulted in condemnation, but 
 the free gift which has grown out of many transgressions resulted in righteousness ; .still 
 further, if, as a consequence of the offen.se of one, death reigned through that one, much more 
 they which receive the abundance of the grace of God and of his gift of righteousness shall 
 reign in life through one — Jesus Christ. To sum all up : as the result of one transgression 
 was a sentence of condemnation coming upon all men, because as a result of that trans- 
 gression all sinned, so also, as the result of one righteousness was a righteousness of life 
 wrought out in all men. Or, to repeat the idea in another form, as by the disobedience 
 of one man the many became sinners, so, by the obedience of one man the many shall 
 become righteous. As to the law, which came afterward, it entered that the sin might be aug- 
 mented ; but where the sin was augmented, the grace did much more abound ; for God'.s 
 <^)bject in all was that as man's sin reigned, ever issuing in death, so God's grace might reign 
 through righteousness ever issuing in eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
 
140 
 
 EOMANS. 
 
 [Ch. V. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 12 Wherefore, as » by one man sin entered into the 
 world, and death by sin ; and so death passed upon all 
 men, for that all have sinned: 
 
 13 (For until the law, sin was in the world : but sin 
 is not'' imputed when there is no law, 
 
 14 Nevertheless, death reigned ' from Adam to 
 Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the 
 similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the "^ figure 
 of him that was to come. 
 
 a Gen. 3 : 6, 19 . . . . b ch. 4 : 16 ; 1 John 3:4. 
 
 . d 1 Cor. 15 : Hi, *;,. 
 
 Ch. 5 : 12-21. THE UNIVERSALITY OF REDEMPTION 
 EVIDENCED BY THE UNIVERSALITY OF THE CURSE. 
 
 At.t, hate died ; ALL HAVE SINNED ; FOR ALL IS REDEMP- 
 TION. — The offence and the free gift contrasted. 
 - The offence is unto condemnation ; the free 
 gift unto justification ; the offence unto death ; 
 the free gift unto life eternal ; the offence 
 hath reigned (past) ; the free gift ghall reign 
 (eternal future). 
 
 12. Wherefore. Paul connects what fol- 
 lows with what precedes. His object is to show 
 the universality of redemption as against the 
 Jewish idea that mercy is for the Jew, and jus- 
 tice for the Gentile (see ch. 2, pp. 100-103). This he has 
 done in the preceding part of this chapter exper- 
 imentally : Christ died for the nngodlij. He now 
 goes on to develop the same idea historically and 
 dogmatically. The gist of hi.s argument is that 
 as sin is universal, much more grace ; as sin and 
 death preceded law and Judaism, so grace and 
 redemption must far out-run Judaism and the 
 law. — As by one man, etc. The reference to 
 Adam is clear. Paul, in arguing with the Jews, 
 assumes the Jewish conception of the origin of 
 evil. Further, we may assume that, as a Jew, he 
 believed it. But his message here is not the 
 origin of evil, but the universality of the remedy. 
 — And through sin death, i. c, by means, 
 or in consequence of sin. That the death here 
 represented is primarily ])hysical death, is evi- 
 dent from verse 14. — For that. The Greek 
 (ff/i' (;)) is rendered in the Vulgate and by some 
 ancient commentators in whom instead of for 
 that; according to this rendering Paul asserts 
 directly the doctrine that the entire race was in 
 Adam and sinned in him. This rendering is, how- 
 ever, abandoned by modern commentators with 
 substantial unanimity (not only Alford, Meyer, 
 Godet, Stuart, but also Shcdd and Hodge). The 
 Authorized Version correctly renders it for that, 
 or because. — All have sinned. Does the Apos- 
 tle mean that all did actually sin in Adam, that the 
 fall was a race fall, or that all men have become 
 sinners, and are condemned not because of 
 Adam's sin, but because of their own voluntary 
 transgression. The original will bear either ren- 
 dering ; the former is given to it by Old School, 
 the latter by New School theologians. For Paul's 
 meaning, if indeed this metaphysical question 
 was in his mind at all, we must look to his gen- 
 eral teaching, not to any grammatical exegesis of 
 
 this particular verse. But the student will note 
 as bearing on this question two facts ; (1), that in 
 verse 14 Adam is declared to be a type of future 
 generations, and his fall a figure of similar trans- 
 gressions constantly repeated ; (2), that in verse 
 16 the grace is declared to be a grace of redemp- 
 tion of many transgressiotiH. It is therefore clear 
 that whatever connection Paul may have had in 
 mind between the original and subsequent trans- 
 gressions, the fact of actual and individual sin, 
 not merely of original sin as involved in Adam's 
 transgression, was not only present, but promi- 
 nent in his mind. 
 
 13, 14. Until the law. That is, previous 
 to the law ; sin did not begin with the Jewish 
 dispensation, therefore, — this is the conclusion to 
 which the Apostle seeks to conduct his readers, — 
 grace is not confined to the Jewish dispensation. 
 — But sin is not reckoned where there is 
 no law. Not, God does not impute sin where 
 there is no law ; does not therefore condemn the 
 sinner {Meyer, Alford), for this is evidently not 
 true, and is directly contrarj' to the Hebrew con- 
 ception embodied in the condemnation and de- 
 struction of the race in the deluge, because of 
 sin prior to the law ; but (as Augnatine. Luther, 
 Calvin, Stuart, and others) 7neH did not reckon it 
 against themselves, did not come to a conscious- 
 ness of it. ' 'Without the law reproving us we in a 
 manner sleep in our shis." — {Calvin.) The passage 
 is thus parallel to chapter 3 : 20 ; by the law is the 
 knowledge of sin. Comp. chapter 7 : 0. — But 
 death reigned from Adam to Moses. 
 Death is the penalty of sin. The reign of death 
 previous to the law is therefore a proof that not- 
 withstanding men's senses sleep in sin, they are 
 sinners, and not only sinners, but were adjudged 
 and condemned by God as sinners, since the divine 
 penalty passed upon them. Professor Jowett 
 puts the Apostle's argument well : " All who 
 died sinned ; but those to whom sin was not im- 
 puted died; therefore they sinned."' — Even 
 upon them who have not sinned after 
 the similitude of Adam's transgression. 
 That is, by violation of a definite and explicit 
 command.— Who is the figure of the future. 
 The Old and New Versions agree in rendering 
 this A figure of him that was to come, and the com- 
 mentators generally see in the phrase a reference 
 to Christ, and in Adam a type of Christ, albeit 
 they have some difficulty in tracing a parallel be- 
 
Cii. v.] 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 141 
 
 IS Hut not as the offence, ^o also is the free gift. For 
 if Uiri)U};li the offeiue ot one many be dead, much 
 more the grace' of God, and the gift by grace, which 
 is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto 
 many.' 
 
 i6 .\nd not as it was by one that sinned, so is tlie 
 gift : for the judgment was by one to condemnation, 
 but the free gift is of many * offences unto justification. 
 
 17 For if by one man's offence death reigned by 
 one; much more they which receive abundance ■■ of 
 grace, and of the gift ' of righteousness, shall reign in 
 life bv one, Jesus Christ.) 
 
 18 Therefore, as by the offence of one judgment 
 came upon all men to condemnation ; even so by the 
 righteousness of one the free gift came upon all J men 
 unto justification of life. 
 
 ' Eph. 2:8 f Isa.53: II; Matt. 30: 28; 26:28; IJoho 2:2 % l9a.l:18 h John 10: 10 1 ch.6:23 j John 12 : 32. 
 
 tween the two. Against this interpretation are 
 these facts: (1), the Greek (nf/.Aco) is never used 
 by Paul in any of its forms to refer to Christ, 
 who is always in his thought not the Coming One, 
 but the One who has come and is present. His 
 use of the phrase will be seen by the English 
 reader by consulting Rom. 8 : 38 ; 1 Cor. 3 : 22 ; 
 Gal. 3 : 23 ; Ephes. 1 : 21 ; 1 Tim. 4:8; 6 : 19. 
 (2), The ordinary interpretation does not agree 
 with the pre^^ous clau.se of the sentence here : 
 "sinning after the similitude of Adam's trans- 
 gression," does not suggest Adam as a type of 
 the sinless One. (3), Adam is not a type of 
 Christ ; no resemblance between the typical 
 sinner and the typical Saviour can be discovered, 
 nor docs Paul trace any resemblance between 
 the two, either here or in 1 Cor. 15 : 22, 45 ; on 
 the contrary, in both passages he draws sharply 
 the contrast between Adam and Christ. I under- 
 stand then Paul's languayre to be property ren- 
 dered here as his similar language is elsewhere, 
 not as a type of him who is to come, /. c, Christ ; 
 but, as a t^-pe of the /«#«*•«, i. e., of the oncom- 
 ing race of man. What Paul then says is. Death 
 reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them 
 that had not sinned as Adam did by disobedience 
 of an explicit statute law ; for Adam was in his 
 fall, and sin, and punishment a t^-pe of the whole 
 human race. How? In this, that those to whom 
 no st;itute law had been given had yet a law in 
 their hearts (ch. s : i:j-i.i) ; like Adam they listen to 
 the voice of the tempter; like him, they violate 
 the law of God ; like him, the^' are by their diso- 
 bedience alienated from God ; like him, they 
 suffer the penalty in separation from God, and 
 death. Adam is the type, not of the Saviour, but 
 of sinful humanity. 
 
 I.j-IT. But not as the offence. No par- 
 allel in Paul's mind, but a sharp contrast, be- 
 tween Adam and Christ. — So also is the free 
 gift. Of redeeming grace. — For if through 
 the transgression of one many died. Pri- 
 marily natural death is referred to ; but it must 
 be remembered that in a p gaticap d proplief.i e 
 mind, like that of PaufPthe material is always a 
 shadow of the spiritual, and always suggests if 
 it does not necessarily imply the spiritual. — 
 Much more the urace of (>od and the gift 
 by tfrace. Grace is the disjjosition fif love in 
 God toward sinf id man ; the gilt is the gift of his 
 
 Son planned in and proceeding from that grace. 
 See John 3 : 1(5 ; Ephes. 2 : 4, 5. — By the one 
 man, Jesus Christ. Note how prominent in 
 Paul's thought is the humanity of Jesus Clirist. 
 Comp. Acts 18 : 31 ; 1 Tim. 2:5. — Hath 
 abounded unto many. Ab(mnded in the 
 exceeding fullness of its provisions for each one, 
 and, so abounding, offered to and adequate for 
 the all who are in need of it. Comp. Ephes. 2:7; 
 2 Cor. 3 : 5 ; : 8. — And not as by the one 
 that sinned is the gift. An emphatic reit- 
 eration of the contrast between man's sin and 
 God's grace, the latter excelling and surpassing 
 in extent the former. The former contrast, 
 however, emphasizes the difference in extent, the 
 following contrast emphasizes the difference in 
 result, the sin being unto condemnation, the grace 
 unto justification. — For the judgment (grows) 
 out of one (transgression) unto condemna- 
 tion, but the free gift (grows) out of many 
 transgressions. The sentence of sin and 
 death against the race is treated as proceeding 
 from, evolved out of, the one transgression, and on 
 the other hand, the free gift, and the grace which 
 bestows it, is treated as proceeding from, evolved 
 out of the multitudinous transgressions of hu- 
 manitj', loved and pitied in its sins because of its 
 needs. — Unto rightening. The end of the 
 gift is the rightening of character, the bringing 
 of the soul back both into filial relations with 
 God, and into a life and character right according 
 to God's standard of righteousness. See Intro- 
 duction, pp. 58, 59. — For if, etc. A third contrast, 
 the first being between the extent of sin and of 
 grace, the second between their respective ends, 
 judyment and juntification, the third between their 
 final results, death and eternal life. The word 
 here rendered righteonmiexx is the same rendered 
 in the preceding verse justification ; to give two 
 raeaninss to this word in the same connection 
 violates the fundamental principles of interpre- 
 taticm. But it is rightiwt-tne.ss of character, not 
 formal acquittal from condemnation which gives 
 eternal life ; that can be conferred only by a real 
 rif/hteousnens. 
 
 18, 19. Therefore as through one trans- 
 ^ression it has come to a sentence of con- 
 demnation for all men, so also through 
 one righteousness, it has come to a ri^ht- 
 eniuK of life for all men. In this and the 
 
142 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 [Ch. Y 
 
 19 For as by one man's disobedience many were 
 made sinners, so by tlie obedience of one shall many 
 be made righteous. 
 
 20 Moreover,'' the law entered, that the offence 
 
 might abound. But where sin .abounded, grace did 
 much more ' abound : 
 
 21 That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might 
 grace ™ reign, through righteousness, unto eternal life, 
 by Jesus Christ our Lord. 
 
 k ch. 7 : 8, 13; John 15 : 22; Gal. 3 : 19. . . .1 John 10 : 10 ; 1 Tim. 1 : 14. . .m John 1 : 17. 
 
 succeeding verse the Aposile sums up tlie whole 
 involved argument of the chapter from verse 
 twelve. The one righteou&ness is the cue conse- 
 crated and sinless life of obedience of Christ 
 Jesus. The end in the one case is a sentence of 
 just condemnation ; the end in the other is not 
 merelj' a reversal of that sentence, a "justif3-ing 
 judgment '' {Meyer), but a setting right of Ufe, 
 the end of which is life eternal with God through 
 Christ Jesus his Son. — For as throuaih the 
 disobedieuce of one many became sin- 
 ners, so also through the obedience of one 
 many shall become righteous. The Greek 
 (xaitLoTiiui) may be rendered vxre made, or were 
 ordained to be, or simply, as I have rendered it, 
 became, but it can not be rendered />«< into the cat- 
 egory of, without a violation of language ; and 
 yet this rendering is required by the theorj* that 
 with Paul justification is equivalent to acqtiittal. 
 What Paul says is, not that because of Adam 
 many were treated as sinners, a manifest and 
 
 palpable injustice, which would not be helped 
 by treating many as righteous because of Christ ; 
 but that historically, as the result of Adam"s 
 transgression, mauj- became sinners ; and his- 
 torically, as a result of God's free gift of his Son, 
 many shall become righteous. 
 
 20, 21 . So far Paul has shown the relation of 
 Adam and Christ to the whole human race, Gen- 
 tUe as well as Jew. He adds a recognition of the 
 revealed law, and its uses. It entered after sin 
 and death, not to abolish sin, on the contrary 
 primarily to increase it, to make it worse, so that 
 " by the commandment sin might become ex- 
 ceeding sinful " (ch. 7 : 13) ; but secondarily, by 
 increasing the sinfulness of sin, and so bringing 
 it to the consciousness of men, to prepare the 
 way for a grace that might still more abound 
 (ch. 11 : 32, 33). Thus the end of sin, death, and 
 law is a reign of God's free grace, through right- 
 eousness, unto eternal life, by means of Jesus 
 Christ our Lord. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PAUL'S DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION. 
 
 What shall we say then ? Shall wc continue in gin, that grace may abound ? God forbid. 
 We who (lied to sin, how shall we any longer live therein ? Or are ye ignorant thai all we who 
 were baptized into Christ Jesus were bai)tized into his death 't We were buried therefore with 
 him through baptism into death : that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the gloi-y 
 of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. For if we have become 'united with 
 him by the likeness of his death, we shall be also by the likenexs of his resurrection ; knowing 
 this, that our old man was crucitied wiili hiiu. that the body of sin might be done away, that so 
 we should no longer be in bondage to sin ; for he that hath died is justified ■■■ from sin. But if 
 we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him : knowing that Christ being 
 raised from the dead dieth no more ; drath no more hath dominion over him. For -the death 
 that he died, he died unto sin -oncp : but -the life th;)t he liveth. he livcth unto God. Even so 
 reckon ye also yourselves to be dead un;o sin, but alive unto (;od in Christ Jesus. 
 
 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey the lusts thereof: 
 neither present your members unto sin as 'instruments of unrighteousness ; but present your- 
 selves nnto God. as alive from the dead, and your members as 'instruments of righteousness 
 unto (iod. For sin shall not have dominion over you : for ye arc not under law, but under 
 grace. 
 
 What then ? shall we sin. because we are not under law, but under grace ? God forbid. 
 Know ye not. that to whom ye present yourselves as 'servants unto obedience, his 'servants ye 
 are whom ye obey ; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness ? But thanks 
 be to God, "that, whereas ye were 'servants of sin. ye became obedient from the heart to that 
 'fonn of teaching whereunto ye were deli\ercd ; and being made free from sin, ye became 
 'servants of righteousness. I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your 
 flesh : for as ye presented your members as servants to nncleanncss and to iniquity unto 
 iniquity, even so now present your members as servants to righteousness unto sanctification. 
 For when ye were 'servants of sin. ye were free in regard of rig teousness. What fruit then 
 had ye at that time in the things whereof ye are now ashamed ? for the end of those things is 
 death. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, yc have your fruit unto 
 sanctification, and the end eternal life. For the wages of sin is death ; but the free gift of God 
 is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord, 
 
 1 Or, united with 
 the likeness . . . 
 with the like- 
 ness. 
 
 * "Justified" add 
 marg. 
 
 Or, released. — 
 Am. Com. 
 
 2 Or, in that. 
 
 3 Gr. once/or aU. 
 
 4 Or, weapons. 
 
 5 Qr.hondservants, 
 
 6 Or, that ye were 
 . . . but ye be- 
 came. 
 
 7 Or, pattern. 
 
 Cliapter.s six, seven, and eight are very closely linked together. They constitute Paul's 
 an.'^wer to the objection, Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound ? Their pliilo- 
 pophical conclusion is embodied in the statement of the nature and end of redemption. 
 ''The law of the spirit of life in Chri.st hath made me free from the law of sin and death." 
 Paul maintains that man is Tightened, not by obedience to law, but by newness of life freely- 
 given by God and freely received bv man ; by God's free grace and man's child-like faith. 
 To this replies the Pharisee, — and this reply v.-e still meet, — You abrogate all law, you preach 
 a dangerous license, you open the way to a practical encouragement to sin. To which Paul 
 replie!^. You do not comprehend the end of redemption. It is not to give man redem])tion 
 from some future penalty or admission to some future bliss. It is to set him free from the 
 law of sin and death by bringing him under a new law of life and righteou.snes.s. The re- 
 deemed is dead to sin, it has no longer dominion over him ; e is alive to holiness, it 
 becomes the end of his life. When this takes place he is a new creature in Chri.st Je.sus ; 
 old motives bom of the fle.sh have pa.s.sed away, new motives bom of the spirit have taken, 
 their place. This, in chapter vi. and in the first six verses of chapter vii., he illu.strates by 
 three figures — rleath and resurrecticm, emancipation and a new allegiance, ami marriage.' 
 
 ' See Introduction, pp. 72-75 for interpretation and application of these three figures. 
 
144 KOMANS. [Cii. VI. 
 
 Having thus illustrated and defined the spiritual doctrine of redemption, as death to siii 
 and a new and divine life in righteousness, he proceeds in the following chapters (VII. and 
 VIII.) to set forth the same truth as a personal experience. 
 
 According to Paul, Christ redeems not only from sin but also from the law,' but we 
 are redeemed from the law that we may fulfill the righteous ends of the law. Leaving the 
 reader to follow Paul's argument in detail in the notes, I here attempt to illustrate 1k)W it 
 is possible that we should at once be set free from the law, and by that very act of emanci- 
 pation, the law should be fulfilled in and by us. 
 
 Man may stand in either one of three relations to law ; in the history both of the indi- 
 vidual and of the race these relations are seen as successive stages in spiritual development. 
 
 The first is one of lawlessness. The child knows nothing about law. He follows his 
 own impulses wherever they lead him. The first lesson to be taught him is that he is in a 
 world governed by law ; that he must consult other wills than his own. He learns by some 
 bitter experiences that there are laws of nature ; by domestic discipline that there are moral 
 laws. The savage knows little or no law but his own will ; the savage tribe lives in a con- 
 dition of relative lawlessness. Co-operation, combination, civil order, national existence 
 are impossible. The first lesson to be taught the roving Indian is that there is law, and 
 that he must be obedient to it. This lesson antedates plows and primers. The second state 
 is one of conscious and deliberate obedience to law ; law external to one's self, enforced by a 
 master external to one's self. The child obeys his parent ; the savage his chief ; the subject 
 his king ; the individual his God. The relation between the two in each case is the relation 
 between a subject and a superior ; the obedience in each case is a deliberate and conscious 
 obedience, generally from fear of penalty or hope of reward, sometimes from a mere passive 
 acquiescence in a stronger will, but always a yielding to something above and external to 
 one's self. This condition is a great advance on the antecedent condition. Obedience is a 
 great advance on self-will and lawlessness. Humanity so recognizes it. Nihilism makes 
 no progress even in Russia, because the substantially universal instinct recognizes the fact 
 that a despotic government is better than no government at all. Tsarism is better than 
 Nihilism. 
 
 But this condition of deliberate and conscious obedience to an external law is not the 
 highest and final condition of humanity — either communal or individual. There is some- 
 thing beyond. It is reached when the individual becomes himself an embodied law ; when 
 the law is no longer external to him but wrought into him ; when he becomes a law unto 
 himself ; when the master and the mastery is wnthin, not without ; when all his impulses 
 are brought into harmony with law ; and he does safely what he pleases because he pleases 
 always to do right. A man physically in the first stages knows no law but his inclination ; 
 disregards the laws of health ; eats what he likes ; exercises when he pleases ; sleeps or 
 wakes as the whim of the moment inclines him. A man in the second stage recognizes 
 certain laws of health, and laboriously and painfully obeys them. He denies himself food 
 which his palate craves ; compels himself to take his daily " constitutional " in spite of his 
 laziness ; rouses himself reluctantly from his bed in the morning because duty nudges him. 
 A man in the third stage turns revolted away from the food which does not nourish ; is 
 impelled to outdoor exercise by his physical impulses ; springs from his bed in the morning 
 spontaneously because all his powers are alert and active and demanding play. He is as we 
 say " the embodiment of perfect health." The child passes into the third stage, when, 
 through obedience to parental authority, he has made his own the principles of right living, 
 
 » Gal. 3 : 13 ; 4 : 4, 5 ; 5 : 1, etc. 
 
Oh. VI.] ' EOMANS. 145 
 
 juiil lie goes from home to put them in practice in life. Politically the American people 
 have passed into the third stage. Not one reader in a hundred of these pages, probably not 
 one in a thousand, knows in any detail what are the laws of his own State. Americans are 
 not under the law ; they are a law to themselves. We are not merely a law-obeying, we are 
 a law-abiding people ; that is, the law abides in and is a part of us. There is in the com- 
 munity not merely an obedience to law external to ourselves; indeed, there are no such 
 laws — politically speaking. The external laws are the expression and embodiment of our 
 own will, and there is a great reservoir of reverence for law, a harmony with it, an acqui- 
 esence in it, a sturdy resolve that it shall be obeyed ; and this, and this alone, is our standing 
 army. Law in the hearts and lives of the great body of tlic ])e<)ple is its own enforcement. 
 A few hundred policemen keep thousands of criminals in order ; because behind the police 
 is this incarnate and embodied though silent spirit of law. If ever this shall die out of the 
 hearts of Americans, American freedom will be at end. We shall revert to the second 
 stage of national development, obedience to a master outside ourselves. 
 
 Now, it is the object of the Gospel to do for each individual soul, in his relations to 
 Goil and God's law, what the parent does for his child, and what history has done for the 
 race : train him to self-government. The object of the Gospel is not to bring men under 
 law, but to bring law under men. Civilization teaches men to use law ; to make it the 
 instrument for saving themselves and each other. The cook does not merely obey the laws 
 of chemistry ; .she makes the laws of chemistry obey her. The engineer is not the servant 
 of the laws of mechanics ; by understanding them he compels them to be his servants. It 
 is the object of Christianity to do for men in the moral realm what civilization does for 
 them in the physical realm ; certainly not to relegate them to the state of unrestrained 
 will ; as certainly not to leave them under law as a master external to themselves ; but to 
 carry them forward to a stage in which the law shall be their servant and implement. The 
 household life atfords an illustration of what the end will be; for in the household father 
 and mother are not merely obedient to the law of love, but use it, in a thousand ofl&ces of 
 sympathy and helpfulness, to train their sons and daughters for future fatherhood and 
 motherhood. This is what Paul means, at least a part of what he means, when he says 
 that we are children of God. God is not under a master — not under law. The law of 
 righteousness is in God, not over him. He is himself the divine law working out right- 
 eousness. And we become his children only when and as his Spirit dwells in us, setting 
 lis free from the law, and making the law itself our instrument. This is what Paul means 
 — at least a part of what he means — when he says, " By the deeds of the law shall no flesh 
 be ju.stified in his sight." Recognizing a divine law, yielding to it a deliberate and conscious 
 ol)e<lieiice, doing what it commands because of the command, justifies no soul in the sight 
 of (jro<l. The only law which the Bible recognizes as adequate, is a law wrought within, in 
 the very fibre of the character. The only obedience which it recognizes as adequate is a 
 spontaneous obedience, which is unconscious, undeliberate, unthoughtful of the law which 
 it in.stinctively obeys. Not to know thi-s, is not to know the very rudiments and elements 
 of the Gospel ; it is not to understand the very alphabet of Christianity ; it is to be igno- 
 rant of the meaning of the Sermon on the Mount. "The law is a school-master, to bring 
 us to Chri.st." This is not merely equivalent to .saying that the ceremonial law is a type 
 fulfilled in the sacrifice of Christ. The whole object of law and obedience in the divine 
 economy is to work out a Christ-like character — a character which knows no will but God's 
 will, because it has no will but God's. As the organ answers to the touch of the organi.st, 
 as the ship "obeys beautifully" her helui, as every muscle of the orator is ol)edient to his 
 deniaml, so the soul, in wIkjiii God has been formed by the divine process which produces 
 
146 ROMANS. [Ch. VI. 
 
 a reconstructed manhood, is the instrument and agent of a divine indwelling ; and knows 
 absolutely no master, except the God who dwells, not without commanding a questioning 
 human will, but within, co-working with the will of man, and becoming tlie player, whose 
 lightest touch the key obeys ; the pilot, to whose guiding hand the ship instantly responds ; 
 the informing and directing spirit, whose obedient organ is the tabernacle in which God 
 dwells. 
 
 This is Paul's teaching in this and the immediately preceding chapters. The end of 
 Christ's redemption is to set the soul free from the law, not by carrying it down but by 
 lifting it up ; by writing the law within and making it a part of the character ; by transform- 
 ing the motives and aspirations and ambitions ; by putting Christ within the soul ; by 
 causing the soul to live in Christ. It is freed from sin, not that it may become the servant 
 of law, that is, of an edict enforced from without, but that it may become the servant of 
 righteousness, that is, of a new and divine life wrought within ; or, to express the same 
 thought in a different phrase, it is freed from sin, not by a painstaking and laborious 
 obedience to external law, but by a new, divinely inspired, spontaneous life wrought witliin. 
 That life is at once the end and the instrument of its redemption. The soul is made dead 
 to the law by the body of Christ, that is, by entering into and becoming a part of him who 
 liveth for ever and ever. 
 
Cir. VT.] 
 
 EOMANS. 
 
 147 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 WHAT shall we say then ? Shall' we continue in 
 sin. that grace may abound ? 
 
 2 God forbid. How shall we, that are dead"" to sin, 
 live any longer therein ? 
 
 3 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized 
 into Jesus Christ were baptized into" his death ? 
 
 4 Therefore we are buried <' with him by bapdsm into 
 
 death ; that like '■ as Christ was raised up from the dead 
 by the' glory of the l-"ather, even so we also should 
 walk in newness* of life. 
 
 5 For if' we have been nlanled together in the like- 
 ness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness o\ his 
 resurrection : 
 
 6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with 
 A/w, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that 
 henceforth we should not serve sin. 
 
 7 For J he that is dead is freed from sin. 
 
 acb.S:8 bver.6-n; Col.S:S; lPct.2:24 c 1 Cor. 15 : 29 d Col. 2 : 12 ; 1 Pet. 3 t 21 eob.8:II: 2 Cor. 13 : 4 fMatt. 28:2,3 
 
 gaal.6:]5: Eph. 4:22-24; 1 John 2 : 6. . . .h Phil. 3 : 10. . . .i Col. 2 : 11. . . .j 1 Pet. 4:1. 
 
 (Ml. C. : P.\ri/S .\NTin()TK TO ANTINOMIAMSM.— Re- 
 demption IS DEATH TO SIN AND RESURRECTION TO 
 RIGHTEOUSNESS. — BAPTISM ISA FIGURE OF SUCH DEATH 
 
 AND RESURRECTION.— Redemption is union with 
 C'HuisT : in his death as well as in his life. — 
 Christian experience is an experience of Christ. 
 
 —No MAN CAN SERVE TWO MASTERS.— ThE FRUITS OF 
 
 ein and the fruits of righteousness coktbastbd. — 
 Sin earns death ; grace gives life. 
 
 1-7. Shall we continue in sin, etc. ? 
 Paul recurs to the question asked by an imagi- 
 nary objector in chapter 3 : 5-8, but not there 
 answered. He now proceeds to answer it. — By 
 HO means. Sec cli. 3 : 0, note. — We are dead 
 to sill ; how shall we any longer live in 
 it ? This form In a measure represents the em- 
 phasis which Paul puts on the death to sin 
 already accomplished. — Were baptized into 
 his death. As circunicisiou admitted the pros- 
 elyte to fellowship with the Jews in their priv- 
 ileges and prerogatives as the chosen people of 
 God, so baptism admits the believer into fellow- 
 sliip with the Messiah in his whole experience of 
 mediatorial suffering and sacrifice, including 
 Christ's death to the ordinary motives and ambi- 
 tions of worldly natures, and Christ's life to the 
 imi)ul.ses of self-sacrificing love. Comp. Phil. 
 3 : 10 ; 1 Pet. 4 : 13 ; Col. 1 : 24.— Therefore we 
 are buried with him by baptism unto 
 death. There is perhaps in this an allusion to 
 the form of baptism, which was certainly ordi- 
 narily, and ])erliaps uniformly, immersion. The 
 argument does not, however, depend upon the 
 form of ihe baptism, but on its analogy to circum- 
 cision, which took the believer out of the old 
 pagan relations and introduced him into new rela- 
 tlon.s, so that he was said, in Rabbinical phraseol- 
 ogy, to b;- born again, and to be a new creature. 
 What is more important than the indication as to 
 form is the unmistakable recognition of the fact 
 that baptism was a consecrating act of faith on 
 the part of the recipient. It can not with any 
 etrictnessbe said, except by those who believe in a 
 literal baptismal regeneration, that the infant who 
 receives the application unconsciously, does there- 
 by die unto the world, and enter into a new life 
 of faith.— We should ualk in newness of 
 life. The end of sin is not nii.sery, but deiith ; 
 the end of redemption is not happiness, but life. 
 
 He, therefore, who asks, Shall we continue in 
 sin that grace may abound ? does not know what 
 redemption is. It is, itself, deliverance from 
 sin. The question is thus a contradiction in 
 terms, Shall we continue in sin that we maj' be 
 more abundantly delivered from sin. — For if 
 we have become grown together with him 
 in the likeness of his death. Not planted 
 together. "The language implies the most inti- 
 mate union of being." — {Meyer, Alford.) The 
 figure of grafting (john u : i-s), though not in- 
 volved in the original here, represents the Apos- 
 tle's idea. It is only as by faith we are vitally 
 united with Christ, becoming sharers of his spirit 
 (cii. 8 : 9), that we are or can be redeemed ; that 
 grace can abound in us. For grace is the free 
 gift of eternal life, ?'. c, of that life which mani- 
 fests itself in Jesus Christ's life of sacrifice. — 
 Knowing this. Having this as our experience. 
 — That our old man. " Former self, personal- 
 ity, before our new birth, opposed to new man 
 
 (see Col. 3 : 10 ; 2 Cor. 5 : 17 j Eph. 4 : 22-24) ; DOt merely 
 
 the guilt of sin, nor the power of sin, but the 
 ma«." — {Alford.)— y/ tis crucified with him. 
 
 (Comp. Gal. 2 : 20 ; Col. 3:6.) The idea of painful 
 death is certainly suggested by the language ; 
 but the essential truth \b death. The old man, 
 the old worldly desires and appetites, are dead. 
 The man is no longer a creature of impulses and 
 passions which are kei)t within some sort of 
 bounds by law ; they are dead, and a new set of 
 impulses and desires have taken their place. 
 Thus it is not i)0ssible that we should become 
 sharers of Christ's life without first being sharers 
 of his death.— The body of sin. "The body 
 which belongs to or serves sin, is ruled by it as 
 its slave and instrument." — {Alford, Mnjer. — 
 He that is dead is freed (lit. justified) from 
 sin. It is clear that in this Bciitence the word 
 rendered freed (marg. jm^tifed (i^nftoixn) is not 
 used forensically as equivalent to acquittal. 
 Death does not acquit him of past sin. But, 
 judged hum;inly, he is free from the pow er and 
 dominion of sin ; when he is dead, sin no longer 
 has dominion over him. So the death of the old 
 man does not acquit him of blame for past trans- 
 gressions, but sets him free from future <meB. 
 Thus Paul's use of the word here affords an in- 
 cidental sanction to tlie interpretation of the 
 
148 
 
 EOMA^^S. 
 
 [Cn. VI. 
 
 8 Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we 
 shall also live with him : 
 
 9 Knowing that Christ,'' being raised from the dead, 
 dieth no more ; death hath no more dominion over him. 
 
 10 VoT in that he died, he died' unto sin once: but 
 in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. 
 
 11 Liltewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead™ 
 indeed unto sin, but alive" unto God through Jesus 
 Christ our Lord. 
 
 12 Let" not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, 
 that ye should obey it m the lusts thereof. 
 
 13 Neither yield ye your members (■ as instruments of 
 
 k Rev. 1:18 1 Heb. 9:28 mver. 2. 
 
 unrigliteousness unto sin : but yield 1 yourselves unto 
 God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your 
 members as instruments of rigliteousness unto God. 
 
 14 For sm shall not have' dominion over you: for ye 
 are not under the law, but under grace. 
 
 15 What then ? shall we sin, because we are not 
 under the law, but under grace ? God forbid. 
 
 16 Know ye not, that to whom ye' yield yourselves 
 servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey ; 
 whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto right- 
 eousness ? 
 
 .p Col. 3 : 5. . . ..( ch. 12 : 1 . . . .r Micah 7 : 19. . . .s John 8 t 34 ; 
 
 word whicli I have given everywhere in this 
 Epistle. 
 
 8-11. If we be dead %vith Christ ^ve 
 have faith that we shall also live with 
 him. This faith, looking forward into the 
 future, is partly based on this experience in tlie 
 past and the present. The whole argument in- 
 terprets and is interpreted by the First Epistle of 
 John; see especially ch. o : 4—10. Death to the 
 world, in the order of Christian experience, pre- 
 cedes and prepares the way for newness of life, 
 in which new joys, hopes, desires, ambitions 
 take the place of those that have been crucified. 
 —For the death that he died, he died 
 unto sin once (i.e., once for all); but the 
 life that he liveth he liveth unto God. 
 Even so reckon ye also yourselves to be 
 dead unto sin but alive unto God in 
 Christ Jesus. The rendering of the New 
 Version is more accurate in every respect than 
 that of the Old Version. The death of Christ 
 was a death unto sin ; the life of Christ is a 
 life unto God ; and we share both death and life 
 as we are in Christ Jesus. The whole argument, 
 if it can be called argument, is on a high spirit- 
 ual plane. To the Apostle the material fact is 
 only a shadow of the spiritual ; Christ's death on 
 the cross was, in his thought, only the consum- 
 mation of his entire incarnation, which was one 
 long passion (comp. Phii. 2 : 1, 8). He who knew no 
 sin was made sin for us ; entering into life and 
 life's struggle with sin, he proved himself from 
 the first hour of the temptation in the wilder- 
 ness dead to all the incentives which Satan could 
 bring to bear upon him ; the remaining years 
 simply confirmed the witness of that trial hour ; 
 he finally triumphed over death in submitting to 
 it ; and in the hour of death sundered forever 
 (once for all) all his relations to sin and its life of 
 struggle and trial, and entered on a new life, the 
 life of glory which he had with the Father befoi-e 
 the world was. All this was not that he might 
 accomplish something for us outside of our- 
 selves, but that he might bring us into unity with 
 himself. We are to be his followers ; and so live 
 in his dying to sin that we may be one with him 
 in his life of righteousness. And this is accom- 
 
 plished only as we are in him, as we are engrafted 
 on him and become grown together in the like- 
 ness of his life, passion, and death, all of which 
 are in the Apostle's thought treated as one and 
 the same. 
 
 12-14. These verses embody the practical 
 residts of what has gone before. As the end of 
 redemption is deliverance from sin, we are not 
 to make our finished redemption an excuse for 
 self-indulgence in sin. Then our freedom would 
 result in a worse captivity. Nor to imagine, as 
 some sects have done, that we can preserve a 
 soul pu-e in a befouled body. We are not to 
 yield ever the members of our mortal bodies — 
 much more not the imaginations of our immortal 
 spirits — to sin ; but dedicate them to God as in- 
 struments of righteousness. For if we really are 
 under grace, have rea'ly received the new life of 
 faith, sin will no longer aave leadership over us. 
 
 15-23. These verses are almost a repetition 
 of the argument of the verses which precede ; 
 only the reader must keep constantly in mind 
 that Paul is not arguing to prove intellectually a 
 proposition in theology, but urging on the spirit- 
 ual apprehension of his readers great truths 
 which, to be effectual, must be spiritually appre- 
 hended ; and he therefore sets the same truth 
 forth in different forms and under different 
 figures ; now in a philosophic form, now in met- 
 aphor, now in the language of experience. The 
 doctrine that men are not and can not be right- 
 ened by obedience to an external law has in all 
 ages of the world been laid hold of by immoral 
 men to give them liberty to continue in their im- 
 morality. It is against this Paul guards hi? 
 readers, and, by repetitions needful, because the 
 danger is so great. Thus far the Apostle has 
 argued that we can not continue in sin because 
 we are dead with Christ. He now puts the same 
 argument in another point of view : " We can not 
 serve two masters. His servants we are to whom 
 we render our service, of sin unto death, or of 
 obedience unto righteousness."— ('-/o'/'e^^.)— To 
 whom ye yield yourselves servants, etc. 
 If you are obedient to sin you are his slaves, 
 then you evidently are not redeemed from his 
 service. You belong to him to whom you are 
 
Cii. VI. 1 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 U9 
 
 17 Hut (iod be thanked, that ve were the servants of 
 sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form' of 
 doctrine which was dehvered you. 
 
 18 Bein)! then made free " from sin, ye became the 
 servants of righteousness. 
 
 ig I speak after the manner of men, because of the 
 intiimity ot your tiesh : for as ye have yielded your 
 members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity, unto 
 iniquity ; even so now yield your members servants 
 to righteousness, unto holiness. 
 
 20 For when ye were the servants • of sin, ye were 
 free Irom righteousness. 
 
 21 What fruit" had ye then in those thmgs whereof 
 ye are now ashamed ? for the end ' of those thmgs is 
 death. 
 
 22 But now being made free from sm, and become 
 servants to Goil. ye have your fruit unto holiness, and 
 the end everlasting life. 
 
 23 For' the wages of sin is death ; but the gift' of 
 God is eternal life," through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
 
 1 1 Tim. 1 : IS. . . .u John 8 : 32. . . .v vcr. 16. 
 
 ch.7 -5 xch. 1 :32; Jaa. 1 1 15 y Gen. 2 :17....z ch. 5 : 17, 21 ...a 1 Pet. 1 : 4. 
 
 obedient. — Ye have obeyed from the heart. 
 
 The impulses out of which all comluct issues 
 have become obedieut to righteousness. — That 
 form (model or pattern) of teachius: to 
 which >e were delivered. They \vere 
 brought to a pattern to be molded thereby. 
 The pattern is all included in Christ's words 
 "Follow me." — I speak after the manner of 
 meu, etc. '• I speak of a ser\ice after the man- 
 ner of men ; because your flesh is still weak, and 
 therefore with you to be righteous is to be the 
 servant of righteousness." — {Jmoctt.) — To un- 
 cleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity. 
 Ratlier, lawlesine.sx. As the \vorst word that can be 
 said of sin is its "exceeding sinfulness ;" so here 
 the Apostle, looking forward to the dreadful end 
 of uncleanness and lawlessness, can think of no 
 consequence so dreadful as the lawlessness itself. 
 So, in ch. 1 : 28, God is represented as giving the 
 disobedient over to a reprobate mind. Comp. 
 Rev. 22 : 11. — To ris^hteousness unto holi- 
 ness. As the punishment of Lawlessness is law- 
 lessness, so the reward of righteousness is holi- 
 ness, i. e., perfect purity of character. — Ye 
 were free from righteousness. As when 
 the soul is living in sin it is not obedient to 
 righteousness, so, when it is living in righteous- 
 
 ness, it can not be obedient to sin. For the two 
 are contrary one to the other.^ — What fruit 
 had ye then .... Ye have your fruit. The 
 
 contrast between the fruitage of the two lives 
 has no close connection with Paul's argument. 
 But it has a very close connection with his moral 
 aim, which is to prevent his readers from taking 
 advantage of his declaration that grace sets free 
 from the law, to lapse into a life of lawlessness. 
 The end of lawlessness is death ; the end of 
 righteousness eternal (not merely everlasting) life. 
 — The wages of sin is death ; the gift of 
 God is eternal life through Jesus Christ 
 our Lord. Not merely (as Jowett) equivalent 
 to " the evil that we receive at the hand of God 
 is deserved, but the good undeserved." The 
 contrast in this verse is necessary to prevent the 
 reader from imagining that Paul's comparison 
 between the two kinds of service is strictly true. 
 He brings his readers back to his primary thought. 
 Sin is a service and death its wages ; righteous- 
 ness is not a service nor life payment for service 
 rendered. Death we earn by our service of sin ; 
 life we receive as a gift, and in order that we may 
 become righteous. Sin pursues death and wins 
 it; righteousness follows life and is produced 
 by it. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 
 
 Or are ye ignorant, brethren (for I epeak to men that know =the law), how that the law hath 
 dominion over a man for so long time as he liveth ? For the woman that hath a husband is 
 bound by law to the husband while he liveth ; but if the husband die, she is discharged from 
 the law of the husband. So then if, while the husband liveth, she be joined to another man, 
 she shall be called an adulteress : but if the husband die, she is free from the law, so that she is 
 no adulteress, though she be joined to another man. Wherefore, my brethren, ye also were 
 made dead to the law through the lody of Christ ; that ye should be joined to another, even to 
 him who was raised from the dead, that we might bring forth fruit unto God. For when we 
 were in the flesh, the 'sinful passions, which were through the law, wrought in our members to 
 bring forth fruit unto death. But now we have been discharged from the law, having died to 
 that wherein we were holden ; so that we serve in newness of the spirit, and not in oldness of 
 the letter. I 
 
 What shall we say then ? Is the law sin ? God forbid. Howbeit, I bad not known sin, 
 except through =the law : for I had not known ^coveting, except the law had said, Thou shalt 
 not ^covet : but sin, finding occasion, wrought iu me through the commandment all manner of 
 ^icoveting for apart from -the law sin is dead. And I was alive apart from =the law once : but. 
 when the commandmeTit came, sin revived, and I died ; and the commandment, which u'as unto 
 life, this I found to be unto death : for sin, finding occasion, through the commandment beguiled 
 me, and through it slew me. So that the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and righteous, 
 and good. Did then that which is good become death unto me ? God forbid. But sin, that it 
 might be shewn to be sin, by working death to me through that which is good ;— that through 
 the commandment sin might become exceeding sinful. For we know that the law is spiritual : 
 but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I 'do I know not : for not what I would, that 
 do I practise ; but what I hate, that I do. But if what I would not. that I do, I consent unto 
 the law that it is good. So now it is no more I that *do it, but sin which dwelleth in me. For 
 I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing : for to will is present with me, 
 but to 'do that which is good is not. I'or the good which I would I do not : but the evil which 
 I would not, that I practise. But if what I would not, that I do, it is no more I that 'do it, but 
 sin which dwelleth in me. I find then Hhe law, that, to me who would do good, evil is present. 
 For I delight "in the law of God after the inward man : but I see a different law in my mem- 
 bers, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity 'under the law of sin 
 which is in my members. O wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me out of Hhe body 
 of this death ? "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then I myself with the mind 
 8er\'e * the law of God ; but with the flesh the law of sin. 
 
 1 Gr. paasioru •/ 
 sins. 
 
 2 Or, law. 
 
 3 Or, lust. 
 
 4 Gr. work. 
 
 5 Or, in regard of 
 the law. 
 
 6 Gr. irith. 
 
 7 Gr. in. Many an- 
 cient authorities 
 read to. 
 
 8 Or, this body of 
 death. 
 
 9 Many ancient 
 authorities read 
 But thanks be to 
 God. 
 
 * For I myself with 
 the mind serve, 
 read / of myself 
 with themind. in- 
 deed, serve. — Am. 
 Com. 
 
 There has been much discussion among the commentators whether in the seventh 
 chapter of Romans, Paul portrays the experience of an unconverted or a converted man ; 
 if the latter, at what point in the chapter the soul passes from the unconverted to the con- 
 verted state. This discussion seems to me — though the criticism may seem somewhat 
 assuming — to be founded on a total misapprehension of the nature of Paul and the object 
 and spirit of his writings. It assumes that the profoundest experience of the spiritual 
 nature can be anatomized ; that the living, palpitating soul can be dissected ; that the 
 seventh chapter of Romans is a sort of spiritual vi^^section ; that it is cold-blooded, ana- 
 lytical, scholastic. I believe this whole conception of Paul and of his writings to be a mis- 
 conception. He portrays, he does not analyze ; he is dramatic, not scholastic ; vital, not 
 philosophical ; sympathetic, not cold-blooded. He is to be ranked wath Shakespeare rather 
 than with Hume, with Browning rather than with Herbert Spencer. As a profound philos- 
 ophy underlies the dramatic representations of Browning, so the dramatic representations 
 of Paul ; but the one is scarcely less dramatic than the other. As it is legitimate for the 
 
Cn. VII.] ' R0MAN8. 151 
 
 stutleiit to seek for the pliiloaophy in the one, so for tlie phih^sopliy in the other. But lie 
 must first of all reco<.;nize the truth that he is studyini^ a dramatist not a scliolastic, that is, 
 one who sees and presents truth in forms of life, not in the forms of thouglit m(;rely or 
 chiefly. 
 
 The phenomena of spiritual life are complex. They can not be divided into com- 
 piirtments. Life is like an ocean voyage ; to-day the sea is glass, to-morrow it is lashed into 
 fury by a cyclone. The scientist may study the causes of the cyclone, and even accurately 
 define the vehemence of wind necessary to constitute one ; but the dramatist describes n(jw 
 the beauty of the calm, now the grandeur of the tempest, and neither draws nor recognizes 
 the sharp lines which separate light winds from a stiff breeze, or a stiff breeze from a 
 tornado. In every man, saint and sinner alike, is an element of lawlessness. The imper- 
 fect impulses are not brought wholly inti) subjection to the law of Christ. The best of men 
 is partly a wild animal not wholly tamed. Doubtless there are some men of so low a 
 standard of life that conflict between the higher and lower nature is almost wholly unknown, 
 because the higher nature has never been sufficiently developed to assert itself ; others of 
 so unpassionate a nature, of impulses so feeble, that a rational self-interest finds no difficulty 
 in alwavs maintaining an unquestioned ascendency ; still others so born and bred, with such 
 natural equilibrium of nature that the anguish and the exhilaration of spiritual conflict are 
 alike absolutely unknown to them. But he who has by nature both strong passions and 
 high ideals, both intense impulses and a vigorous and exacting conscience, as Paul had. will 
 know periods of intensity of conflict between the two ; with sometimes the dread depression 
 of defeat, and sometimes the unutterable joy of victory. Such a man, of intense nature and 
 variant moods and consequent changeful phases of experience, will pass by sudden transition 
 from calm to tempest and from tempest to calm again. And according to the experience of 
 the hour, or his subsequent recall of it, life will seem to him a cyclone or a sea of glass. It 
 is thus that Paul describes life in the seventh and eighth chapters of Romans. In the 
 seventh chapter he is filled with the experience of life's awful conflict, and he portrays it 
 with an intensity of feeling born of past experience, which leaves his description unsur- 
 passed in dramatic literature for its profound and vital truthfulness. In the eighth chapter 
 of Romans he is filled with the experience of life's resplendent victory, the experience of 
 unearthly repose which fills the soul with a joy and peace wliicli passeth understanding, and 
 this he describes with an intensity of feeling which leaves his description unequaled in 
 spiritual literature, as a portrayal of the kingdom of heaven regnant in the soul. Do we 
 ask, when does the soul pass from the unregenerate to the regenerate state ; one might as 
 well ask for the moment when the anguish of a great bereavement gives place to the joyful 
 sorrow of a comforted heart. Do we ask whether these chapters describe Paul's experience 
 or universal human experience? The answer is that, like all true dramatists, Paul describes 
 the universal experience in his own ; and whether his own experience has interpreted to 
 him the experience of humanity, or by his intense sympathy he has made the experience 
 of humanity his own, is a question at once idle to a.sk aqd impossible to answer. 
 
 Paul, it mu.st be remembered, is endeavoring to .show his readers that the world is to be 
 Tightened, not by a laborious obedience to law, but by a sympathetic reception of God's 
 personal influence ; not by doing the deeds of the law, but by receiving the free gift f)f 
 God's indwelling Spirit. He has set forth this truth ; he has met and answered the objec- 
 tion that this doctrine is contrary to the Scripture, by showing that it is confirmed and 
 ratified by the story of Abraham, the founder of the Jewish nation ; he has shown that not 
 the Jews only, but the whole race of man, need this grace, anil therefore, since God is God, 
 it must be presumed to be provided f©r the whole race ; and then he is confronted with the 
 
152 KOMANS. [Ch. MI. 
 
 objection that he is preparing to do away with hiw ; that he is preaching a doctrine which 
 will promote lawlessness. Now it was Paul's nature, as it is the nature of all men in whom 
 the spiritual predominates, to care very little about purely intellectual objections, but a 
 great deal about those of a practical and moral nature. No theology can be true which 
 tends to make bad men. And Paul's whole nature rises up, in all its intensity, against this 
 fallacious but specious objection. As he argues against it, his feeling grows more and more 
 tense. You do not know, he cries, what redemption is ; it is deliverance from sin. That 
 is chapter six. You do not know what sin is ; it is lawlessness. That is chapter seven. 
 But in both chapter six and chapter seven the truth is embodied in living forms, by a man 
 whose inflammable nature was set on fire by the thought that he could be imagined to be 
 teaching a doctrine which tended to lawlessness, he whose whole aim it was to show men 
 how their every power could be brought into joyful subjection to the law, because to the 
 personal sway, of Christ. 
 
 With this partial exjDosition I purpose here to attempt to translate the seventh chapter 
 of Romans from a dramatic into a philosophic form, leaving the reader to find the authority 
 for the interpretation in detail in the accompanying notes. 
 
 The first state of the soul is that of innocence. Whatever dormant capacity for good 
 or evil there may be in the babe, there is in him neither virtue nor vice. The drama of the 
 Garden of Eden is repeated in every life. Every babe is an Adam. Christ is perpetually 
 placing a little child in (jur midst, as an example, not of character after discipleship, but of 
 the conditions of true discipleship before the work of the teacher has been impeded by sin. 
 Every man may well say, I was alive without the law once. And he is alive because he is 
 without law. The law has not come into his conscience, and so he has neither done right — 
 that is, obeyed law ; nor done wrong — that is, disobeyed law. What mother will ever forget 
 the moment when the idea of a law higher than his own impulse, first dawned on the mind 
 of her babe 1 Following some natural and innocent impulse, he essayed some injurious act. 
 She checked him. He repeated it. She forbade him again ; in word, with gesture, finally 
 perhaps with a slight tap upon the baby hand ; not enough to hurt, just enough to enforce 
 the law. What wonder looked out of baby eyes ! What new strange consciousness was 
 seen dawning in baby soul ; the consciousness of a higher will than his own, of a law over 
 him and to which he must be obedient. In that moment for him the seventh of Romans 
 began. And from that moment it ceased not, and will not cease while life lasts. Laws 
 multiply with the years. We learn the lesson first of obedience to father and mother ; 
 then of submission to an unwritten law in learning the condition of fellowship with brother 
 and sister ; then of the requirements of a wider range of laws in the more complicated 
 relations of school, village, college ; then the larger realm of social, industrial, political law 
 in manhood's friendships, avocations, citizenship ; and, if the student of life be spiritually 
 wise, he will discover in them all the universal law, the moral order of the universe, ema- 
 nating from the throne of God, and calling all men, through their varied accountability to 
 father, mother, teacher, neighbor, church, state, unto the one central accountability to God, 
 whose throne is in every man's conscience, and whose voice is in every man's spiritual 
 reason. What is true of the individual is true of the community and of the race. It 
 passes from earlier conditions of life, with their arcadian simplicity, in which relationships 
 are few and laws are simple, into higher and yet higher conditions ; each new advancement 
 in civilization being marked by more complex relationships and more complex laws. The 
 obedience of the savage to his chieftain is a very simple matter compared with the multi- 
 form obedience required of an American citizen to the laws of society, of trade, of religion, 
 and of citizenship, by the complicated conditions of a free and highly organized modem 
 
("II. VII.] ROMANS. 15a 
 
 Slate'. Noi' oaii tliero ever be u backward step. R«mt<seau's dream of a return to the sim- 
 plicity of nature is as visionary as Prince Krapotkins dream of a millennium of anarchy, a 
 happy family without law. The clierubim always stands at the guarded gate forbidding 
 return to the Garden of Eden. Tlie state of man in the wilderness is higher than his state 
 in the Ganlen. His hard walking with law is needful to give him muscles of iron and 
 sinews of steel. He was innocent ; he is to become virtuous; and virtue comes only 
 through a clear comprehension and a cheerful obedience to law. Thus virtue and vice 
 necessarily no together ; the fall downward is a fall upward. The law which works out 
 virtue by obedience, works out sin by disobedience. For neither is possible except as both 
 are possible ; except as obedience and disobedience are set in alternative before the soul ; and 
 it learns to bring all its untrained and untamed impulses into obedience to the law of the 
 higlier reason. Thus it is literally true : No law, no sin ; literally true, too, that by the 
 knowledge of the law is the knowledge of sin. For consciousness of obligation brings with 
 it conscioiisness both of merit and demerit. 
 
 For sin consists not in any particular impulse ; but in the lawlessness of all the 
 iuii>ulses. There is no impulse that, lawfully exercised, is not lawful ; nor one that, un- 
 lawfully exercised, is not unlawful. Appetite ? We could not live without it. Acquisi- 
 tiveness ? It drives all the wheels of productive industry. Combativeness ] It is the 
 source of heroism. Approbativeness ? It is the source of sympathy. Self-esteem? With- 
 out it man is an invertebrate animal. Conversely: is conscience virtuous? Conscience 
 has instigated wars more cruel than ambition was ever guilty of. A selfish conscience is 
 the most ruthless of faculties. Reverence? Lawless reverence is the breeder of all de- 
 grading superstitions. Love 1 Even love unruled by law pleases but serves not, and slays 
 while it caresses. Sin, says John, is lawlessness.' It is the ebullition of the motive powers, 
 acting under no law, ungoverned by the divinely-inspired spiritual nature. But this ebulli- 
 tion of the impulses is not sin in one to whose consciousness no law of a higher life has 
 been revealed. If there is no higher life, there is no revolt against it, and if no revolt 
 against it, then no sin, a truth which Hawthorne has beautifully portrayed in the " Marble 
 Faun": " Imagine, now, a real being, similar to this mythic Faun; how happy, how 
 genial, how satisfactory would be his life, enjoying the warm, sensuous, earthy side of 
 nature ; reveling in the merriment of woods and streams ; living as our four-footed kindred 
 do, — as mankind did in its innocent childhood ; before sin, sorrow, or morality itself, had 
 ever been thought of ! Ah ! Kenyon, if Hilda and you and I — if I at least— had pointed 
 ears ! For I suppose the Faun had no conscience, no remorse, no burden on the heart, no 
 troublesome recollections of any sort ; no dark future either." The whole volume is a 
 parabolic interpretation of the third chapter of Genesis and the seventh chapter of Romans. 
 
 Thus it is that law, the direct end of which is to develop virtue out of innocence by 
 strife, affords a vantage-ground for sin ; it becomes an instrument of sin. Progress upward 
 and progress downward go on together in the hi.story of the race ; the one by obedience, the 
 other by disobedience. The brutal man is not a brute, but something immeasurably worse, 
 as the man, strong in his athletic virtue, is not merely innocent, but something immeas- 
 urably better. It is this double progress under law which deceives men ; and according as 
 one looks on the better side of life, the evolution of virtue through obedience, or on the 
 worse side of life, the evolution of vice through disobedience, is he optimist or pessimist. 
 Tlie drunkenness of the nineteenth century is as much worse than the drunkenness of the 
 first, as the temperance sentiment of the nineteenth century is stronger than the temperance 
 
 > 1 John 3:4. " Sin is the transgression of the law ;" lit., lawkssneas. Conip. James 1 : 15. 
 
154 ROMANS. [Ch. YII. 
 
 sentiment of the first. War is as much more destructive as peace is more normal and more 
 fruitful. Homes are worse and homes are better. There is more of hell and more of 
 heaven. 
 
 Out of this battle of life, between the higher nature which perceives the law of the 
 divine life, and the impulses which can only learn obedience through strife and suffering, 
 grow the mystery, the fragmentariness, the unsatisfactory results of life. The law belongs 
 to man as a child of God ; it is spiritual. But man still retains in him elements of an 
 untamed nature ; and these he suffers to rule him, and their rule is the rule of anarchy and 
 of lawlessness. " I do not understand what I am working out in my life," cries Paul. "For 
 I do not practice what I have purposed ; and I hate what I produce." '■ This is the universal 
 experience. What man has ever woven in the loom the pattern which he set for himself in 
 his youth, or can say of himself, I know what I am, whither I am going, what I am 
 achieving 1 " Life," says Bovee, "like some cities, is full of blind alleys ; the great art is to 
 keep out of them." " Life," says Shakespeare, " is but a walking .shadow ; a poor player 
 that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more ; it is a tale told by 
 an idiot ; full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." " l\niat is life," says Bishop Burnet, 
 '' but a circuit of little mean actions. We lie down and rise again, dress ourselves, feed and 
 grow hungry ; work or play and are weary ; and then we lie down again and the circle 
 returns." " All the perfection, beauty, and conquest which Turner wrought," says Ruskin, 
 " is already withered. The canker-worm stood at his right hand, and of all his richest and 
 most precious work there remains only the shadow." What are all these but concurrent 
 testimony to the truth of Paul's declaration : What I am working out in my life I do not 
 ixnderstand. Only Paul, with deeper insight, perceives and reveals the reason : our life is 
 fragmentary and evanescent, because it is the product of our impulses, not of our higlier 
 reason ; it is ungoverned ; desires we have, but no one great, overmastering, divine choice, 
 ruling all passions and controlling all actions ; and so the life, made up of daily practices, 
 unruled by a divinely ordered purpose, ends in a result always unsatisfying, and often 
 absolutely hateful to us, when the higher reason perceives what the higher reason had no 
 part in producing. Thus in every man is a double nature ; thus in every life a conflict. 
 Art and poetry alike bear witness to it. It is hinted at in the Laocoon, in the strife between 
 the serpents coming up out of the sea and the infant Hercules, in the battles between St. 
 George and the dragon, and St. Michael and the dragon. 
 
 The seventh chapter of Romans, then, is not a description of either a regenerate or an 
 nnregenerate man ; it is a picture of life, a portrayal of universal experience. To all of us 
 comes a dawning and growing consciousness of a higher law giving opportunity for obe- 
 dience to work out a \drile manhood ; but also giving a vantage-ground for disobedience to 
 work out death through lawlessness. The battle which ensues is life ; full of mystery ; of 
 hroken resolutions ; of results hateful and hated. From such a battle and such an issue, 
 Avhat power can give the soul deliverance 1 
 
 1 See note on verse 15 for the grounds of this interpretation. 
 
Ch. VIL] 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 155 
 
 CHAPTER Vir. 
 
 KNOW ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that 
 know- the hiw,) how that the law hath dominion 
 over a man as Ion;; as he liveth ? 
 
 2 For* the woman which hath an husband is bound 
 bv the law to /n-r husband, so long as he liveth ; but it 
 the husband be dead, she is looseil from the law of Acr 
 husband. 
 
 3 So then if, while'' /ter husband liveth, she be mar- 
 ried to another man, she shall be called an adulteress : 
 but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law ; 
 
 so that she is no adulteress, thoug;h she be married to 
 another man. 
 
 4 Wherefore, my bretlircn, ye also are become dead 
 to the law'= by the body of Christ ; that ye should be 
 married to another. f7Yv/ to him who is raised from the 
 dead, that we should bring forth fruit "i unto (iod. 
 
 5 For when we were in '' the tlesh, the motions of 
 sins, which were by tlie law, did work in our members, 
 to bring forth fruit ' unto death. 
 
 6 Hut now we are delivered from the law, that being 
 dead wherein we were held ; that we should serve in 
 newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter. 
 
 a 1 Cor. 7 : 39 b Matt. S : 32 c Gal. 5 : 18. . ..d Gal. 5 : 2'i e ch. 
 
 I f ch. 6 : 31. 
 
 Ch. 7 : l-«. REDEMPTION FURTHER ILLUSTRATED. 
 Divorced from sin ; married to Christ. — The fruit 
 of sin 13 death ; of fajth 19 life unto grod. 
 
 1-3, Paul continues his argument, employing" 
 an illustration to make clear his conception of 
 redemption as deliverance from .•^in itself. The 
 soul was married to the law ; the law is dead ; 
 the soul is therefore free from the law, and is 
 married to Christ. But the figure is not consist- 
 ently carried out. The intensity of the Apostle 
 makes him indifferent to the laws of rhetoric, as 
 he often is to the laws of logic. — I speak to 
 those who know the law. His argument 
 is addressed chiefly to the Jews, and the Juda- 
 iziuii" Christians. The GentUes were in no danger 
 of lapsing into legalism. — As Ion;? as he liveth. 
 That is, only so long. Death ends the authority 
 of the law. What follows illustrates this gen- 
 eral principle. — The married woman is 
 bound to her husband while he lives. 
 The Apostle has in mind the Jewish law. The 
 Roman law allowed the utmost lil)erty of divorce 
 to both husband and wife. — If her husband 
 be dead, etc. Death comi)letely sunders the 
 old relation and all the duties growing out of it. 
 In applying this principle, liowever, he does not 
 maintain the parallel. For, in the figure, the 
 man dies, and the woman is cleared ; but in the 
 application it is not the law which dies, but the 
 soul which dies to the law. In the figure, too, 
 it is tlie death which makes possible a new mar- 
 riage ; but, in the application, the new marriage 
 to Christ is tlie means by which the soul becomes 
 dead to the law. The essential truth is, how- 
 ever, the same in both type and prototype ; the 
 entire old relationships are disannulled and de- 
 stroyed, and new ones are created in their 
 place. 
 
 4-6. Ye are become dead to the law. 
 IIow ? By being brought into newness of life, 
 which makes the restraints of the law no longer 
 necessary ; this is clear from the next clause. — 
 By the body of Christ. The body of Christ 
 is sometimes in Paul's usage his physical body 
 (i Cor. 11 : 29), but generally the church (i cor. li : 
 S7; Eph. 1 : 23; 4 : 12; 5 : 3o). Thesc uses are not In- 
 
 congruous. In Paul's thought the incarnation is 
 a perpetual fact ; Christ dwells in, is embodied 
 in, his church. This is a living organism, of 
 which the indwelling Christ is the animating 
 spirit. When we enter into this organism, be- 
 come a part of it, are thus engrafted on Christ, 
 made one with him, joined to him as the head 
 from whom all the power of life comes (Eph. 4: is), 
 we thereby become dead to the old relations to 
 God, that of a bond-servant under his law, and 
 enter into a new relation, that of a friend (.inhn 
 15 : lo), a son (ch. s : 14), a bride of the Lamb. — 
 That ye should be married, etc. The figure 
 of marriage to illustrate the true relation be- 
 tween God and man was familiar to the Jews 
 
 (is. 64 : r, ; 62 : 4, 5 ; Jer. :) : 14 ; Hos. 2 : 19, 2o). — That 
 
 we should bring forth fruit unto God. 
 
 The life of the Christian is here represented as 
 the result of nearness to him, as in the preceding 
 illustration of the life imparted by him. Ac- 
 cording to legalism, acceptance with God is the 
 result of practical righteousness, according to 
 the Gospel practical I'ighteousness is the result 
 of acceptance with God. (comp. p.ph. 2 : 10.) — In 
 the flesh. That is, when our life was in the 
 gratification of the flesh ; of the am'mal nature, 
 the sensual and social instincts (si-c ch. 8 : s). — 
 The motions of sins. The jtassious through 
 which sins are brought about, of which sins are 
 the actual consequence. — {Mei/er.) — Which was 
 through the law. The passions are not sin- 
 ful except as they are lawless, violate law. 
 See below. — Did work. Were the source of 
 energy ; the foreefulness of character always 
 caring either for the lower animal or the higher 
 spiritual nature ; and when for the lower, always 
 with the same results. — To bring forth fruit 
 unto death. Comp. Jas. 1 : 1."). — Being dead 
 to that wherein we were liolden . Paul holds 
 fast to the reality, though it makes him false to 
 his figure. It is not, as in the Old Version, the 
 law that is dead, but, as in the New Version, the 
 soul that is dead to the law.— That we should 
 serve. There is service under the Gospel, as 
 under the law ; but it is the sei-vice of love, not 
 of law ; of liberty, not of bondage ; of the spirit, 
 not of the letter. 
 
156 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 [Ch. VII. 
 
 7 What shall we say then ? Is the law sin ? God 
 forbid. Nay, I had not" known sin, but by the law : 
 for I had not known lust, except the law had said,'' 
 Thou shalt not covet. 
 
 8 But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, 
 wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For 
 without the law, sin mas dead. 
 
 g ch. 
 
 Ch. 7 : 7-25. 'IHE BATTLE OF LIFE.— A pilgrimage 
 
 FROM INNOCENCE TO VIETtTE, THROUGH LAW.— THE END 
 OF LAW : A KNOWLEDGE OP SIN.— ThE HOBROB OF SIN: 
 ITS EXCEEDING SINFULNESS.— SiN A TASK-MASTER ; THE 
 SINNER A SLAVE. — MTSBLF A MTSTERT : I UNDERSTAND 
 NOT, PURPOSE NOT, DESIRE NOT WHAT I DO. — MtSELF 
 A BATTLE-GROUND : BETWEEN I MTSELF AND SIN 
 DWELLING IN MB.— ThE LAW OF THE SPIRIT AND THE 
 LAW OF TUB FLESH. THE DESPAIR OF HUMANITY : WHO 
 SHALL DELIVER ME ? — ThE HOPE OF HUMANITY : 
 
 THROUGH Jesus Christ our Lord. 
 
 7, 8. Paul now passes from the argumenta- 
 tive to the experimental. Tliere has been a great 
 deal of discussion whether the remainder of this 
 chapter is to be regarded as Paul's description 
 of his own personal experience, or of the generic 
 experience of the race ; whether of a converted, 
 or an unconverted soul ; if the former, at what 
 point in the description the conversion takes 
 place. This entire discussion is foreign to the 
 spirit of the Apostle. He is still engaged in 
 answering the question of the imaginary objector 
 at the beginnmg of ch. 6 : " Shall we continue in 
 Bin that grace may abound?" By a dramatic 
 representation of human experience, in which his 
 own is incorporated to this extent that all human 
 experience is portrayed in it in its general feat- 
 ures, or his own is made use of to illustrate the 
 universal experience, he shows again, as he has 
 before showed by trope and figure, how the 
 question is a total misconception of redemption 
 which is a deliverance from the "body of this 
 death," i e., the conflict of the higher intellect 
 and will with the lower appetites and passions ; 
 80 that to speak of a man as redeemed, who is 
 still living in his lower, sensual, animal nature 
 Is a contradiction in terms. No analysis of this 
 passage is possible, except a dramatic analysis. 
 "The seventh of Romans is no more dramatic 
 than the two preceding chapters, or the eighth 
 of Romans. They are a remarkable mixture of 
 the abstract and concrete ; of feeling, imagina- 
 tion, and fact ; as simple statement, and as met- 
 aphor. To interpret them by a scientific method 
 would be as preposterous as to apply logarithm 
 to Milton's Allegro, or II Penseroso. We must 
 go out into life, we must go within, to others 
 and our own experience, for a quick and real 
 comprehension. "Especially, one must have 
 the sensibility to poetry."— (IT. W. Beecher.)— 
 Is the law sin ? This is not merely a repe- 
 tition of the objection in chap. 6 : 15: Shall 
 we sin because we are not under the law ? Paul 
 has said that we are delivered from the law. But 
 
 he has before argued that by redemption we are 
 delivered from sin. What then ? Is the law sin, 
 that we should seek to be delivered from it '? 
 Is it not holy, just, and good ? This is the ques- 
 tion which he now proceeds to answer. — By no 
 means. But I had not known sin except 
 by law. Not th£ law. The reference is not to 
 the Mosaic law ; the argument is, that a knowl- 
 edge of law is necessary to a consciousness of 
 sin ; but the Gentiles who have a law written in 
 their hearts have also a consciousness of sin 
 (ch. 2 : is).— For I had not known covetous- 
 ness if the laAV — the definite article implies the 
 Mosaic law ; the Apostle jjasses from the general 
 principle to a specific illustration of it — had 
 not said, Thou shalt not covet (Exod. so : \i). 
 The word rendered covet signifies literally simply 
 any carnal desire. It is sometimes used in an 
 entirely good sense (L«ke 22 : if,; 1 xim. 3 : 1) ; but 
 generally of the lower animal desires. It is clear 
 from the jihraseology of the tenth commandment 
 that it is not limited in Scripture use to covet- 
 eousness in the modern sense of the word. It is 
 used in old English with a broader signification : 
 " We coveted to ankor rather by these Islands than 
 by the Maine.'" — (Raleigh, Discovery of Guiana). 
 It was the law against illicit desires which made 
 certain desires illicit. — But sin taking; a van- 
 tage ground. A military figure ; it might bt- 
 rendered a base of ojxrations. — Through the 
 commandment. Not the law; the word is 
 difEerent. Law (vofioc) is generic; command- 
 ment (firo/li/) is specific ; the one is the principle 
 which may be recognized though unwritten ; the 
 other is the statute which embodies and applies 
 the principle. The heathen have the law but not 
 the commandment written in their hearts. The 
 written commandment making clear the law and 
 therefore the sin against it, made the sin more 
 sinful. Thus sin found in the commandment a 
 means to accomplish its object. — Wrought in 
 me every kind of covetousness. That is of 
 illicit desire. — For no law, no sin. Literally, 
 For without Iniv, sin dead. Observe again no defi- 
 nite article. Paul does not say without com- 
 mandment, i. e., specific statute ; nor without 
 the law, i. e. , the Mosaic system ; but without 
 law. His meaning is not merely that without a 
 knowledf/e of law there is no knowledge of sin. 
 The statement is literally true : no law, no sin. 
 There is no law in the hog against gluttony, and 
 gluttony in the hog is no sin. In the develop- 
 ment of character, as it arises into higher planes 
 
Cii. VII.] 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 157 
 
 9 l'"or I was alive without tlie law once: but when 
 the couiinaniinient came, sm revived, and I died. 
 
 10 And the comniandment, which ■n'tis ordained to 
 life.' I found to he unto death. 
 
 11 For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, 
 deceived me, and by it slew me. 
 
 12 Wherefore the law' is holy, and the command- 
 ment holy, and just, and good. 
 
 13 Was then that which isfjood made death unto me? 
 God forbid. Hut sin, that it might appear sin, working 
 death in me by that which is good ; that sin by the 
 commandment might become exceeding sinful. 
 
 i Ewk. so : 11, etc j Ps. 19 : 1-9 
 
 of life, it comes into new laws of holiness, and 
 thtM-eby into now possibilities of sin. Thus each 
 new development creates new laws of life ami 
 eacli new law a new possibility of both holiness 
 and sill. The truth is dramatically illustrated by 
 the story of the Fall. Adam alone was brought 
 under law ; to Adam alone therefore was sin 
 possible. 
 
 9-12. For I was liviu&: without law 
 once. " Paul means the death-free life of child- 
 like innocence, when, — as this state of life re- 
 sembling the condition of our first parents in 
 Paradise was the brightest spot of his own 
 earliest recollection.'' — (Meyer.) However per- 
 sonal the experience, the principle is universal. 
 The first state of the race, and of every indi- 
 vidual in it, is a state of innocence ; in which not 
 having yet come to any consciousness of law, the 
 soul has not come to any consciousness of sin. 
 It is the free and joyous state of childhood ; 
 whether of the individual or of the race. — But, 
 the commandment came, sin revived, but 
 I died. Sin " came to life, began to live and 
 flourish." — {Alford.) Yet the Apostle uses a 
 word signifying coming to life af/ain^ because 
 there is in his mind the truth that sin lay dor- 
 mant, ready to spring into life, in the innocent 
 nature. As in Gen. 4:7: "Sin coucheth at the 
 door," ready to spring upon the soul whenever 
 it gives opportunity. — And the command- 
 ment, the object of which was life, I found 
 in its results to be deatti. This is a free 
 translation, but it represents the spirit of the 
 original. The object of law is the consecration 
 of the higher Ufe ; in actual experience disobe- 
 dience to the law results in death. The state of 
 innocence is lost by a knowledge of law ; the 
 higher state of virtue is lost by disobedience 
 of that law. — For sin taking a vantage- 
 uroiind by means of the law, deceived 
 me. Comp. Gen. 3 : i:5. The language is that 
 of common experience ; Paul does not justify 
 the excuse in dramatically using it to portray 
 the common experience of humanity falling 
 into sill. — And through it slew me. This 
 reference to death by the Aj)0stle is not merely 
 figurative. The laws are laws of life becau.se 
 obedience to them is necessary to preserve 
 lifi' ; disobedience to them involves death. 
 Persistent violation of the laws of spiritual life 
 involves spiritual destruction f.omp. Deut. .■'.(i : 19). 
 — The law is holy, etc. The reiteration is 
 
 mainly if not merely emphatic. Holy is spirit- 
 ually liealthful ; just, according to righteousness. 
 Good is productive of good. God's laws are not 
 arbitrary decrees ; nor made for his own glory ; 
 but according to righteousness, and for the health 
 and welfare of his children. 
 
 13, 14. Then the good becomes death 
 to me ! Either an exclamation, as of an imag- 
 inary objector, or a question of the Apostle ; 
 cither rendering is possible. In either form it 
 continues the argument with the objector. 
 "Shall we sin because we are not under the 
 law?" "No! For the very object of redemp- 
 tion is to deliver us from sin and from law." 
 " Oh ! so the law is itself sinful, is it ?" " No ! 
 The law is good, but our disobedience of it en is 
 in death." "Ah! Then the law which God 
 made good we make evil V " '' Not at all. But the 
 law makes at once possible and apiiarent sin, 
 which is the only evil." This is the Apostle's 
 argument put in a condensed form. — By no 
 means. But sin that it might appear sin. 
 That its true nature might be revealed. — Work- 
 ing death in me by that which is good ; 
 i.e., by the commandment. "The misuse and 
 perversion of good is one of the tests whereby 
 the energy of evil is detected ; so that sin by the 
 perversion of the commandment (good) into a 
 cause of death (evil), was shown in its real char- 
 acter as sill.''''— {Alford.) — That sin by means 
 of the commandment might become ex- 
 ceeding sinful . M'kjIiI become is not equivalent 
 to miijld iippear. The coiiiinandment not only 
 makes sin apparent, it also makes it exceeding 
 sinful. Whatever educates the moral sense, 
 makhig the law of the moral life clear, enhances 
 the sin of violating that law. Thus this passage 
 agrees with the declaration of ch. 2 : 12, which 
 may be regarded as a necessary corollary of ihe 
 declaration here. He that sins agamst the ex- 
 plicit command is exceeding sinful, and is there- 
 fore subject to a severe penalty. Comp. Luke 
 12:47, 48; John 1.5 : 22.— For we know tliat 
 the law is spiritual. Api)ertains to the sjiir- 
 itual man, concerns the spiritual realm.— But I 
 am fleshly. Fleshly, but not J\<>^h. Man is 
 aninial, liiit not an animal.— Sold under -sin. 
 To Paul's thought sin is always foreign to man's 
 true nature. It is a violation of the law of his 
 own being. It has dominion over him; and by 
 the redemption that is in Christ Jesus he is set 
 free from the law of sin and death (<ii. 8.2, comp. 
 
158 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 [Ch. VII. 
 
 14 For we know that the law is spiritual : but I am 
 carnal, sold "^ under sin. 
 
 15 For that which 1 do, I allow not : for what 1 
 would, that do I not ; but what 1 hate, that do I. 
 
 16 If then I do that which I would not, I consent 
 unto the law, that // is good. 
 
 17 Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that 
 dwelleth in me. 
 
 k '2 Kings 17: 1" 
 
 John 8 : 34-36). — FoF what I am workiiig out 
 ill life, I do not understand ; for not as I 
 would do I act; but what I hate that do 
 I produce. In this passage, as rendered in the 
 English version, there is what is possibly a neces- 
 sary confusion introduced into the Old Version 
 by its employment of the same English word do 
 to translate tliree different Greek words {y.arto- 
 yui^ofiui, TtQuaaii), and ttoisoj). These words are not 
 to be regarded as synonymous, as they are in the 
 Old Version, and though the New Version indi- 
 cates a difference, it does not adequately convey 
 tJie difference indicated in the original. This I 
 have attempted to express by giving a different 
 English word for each of the different Greek 
 words. Ginosko {■/ivo'tay.oi) is imperfectly ren- 
 dered allow in the Old Version ; it is properly 
 rendered knoiu in the margin and in the New 
 Version. It signifies not the consent of the 
 mf)ral nature, but the xmclerstanding of the in- 
 tellectual nature. Katergazomi {xarcnyul^ouai)^ 
 do in the first clause is literally to work out, to 
 accomplish and ripen, the product of the life's 
 activity as a whole ; prasso {rtituoaw), do in the 
 second clause is literally to practice, and signifies 
 the individual acts of which life is made up ; 
 poieo (TToiiw), do in the third clause, is literally to 
 make and signifies the product of those individ- 
 ual acts when looked back upon in reflection, as 
 at the end of a day or an epoch. Paul does not 
 simply reiterate the same truth in different 
 forms ; what I do I allow not ; for what I would 
 I do not, and what I do I hate. He gives a won- 
 derfully true description of life's experience; 
 declares that all our life is in confusion, because, 
 instead of governing our daily actions by a delib- 
 erate and consecrated will, we suffer them to be 
 determined by our fleshly impulses, and as a 
 result always look back with dissatisfaction upon 
 the finished product. The whole passage is to 
 be interpreted by our own consciousness. No 
 man's life is a well laid out campaign, so that he 
 comprehends its issue and significance. We work 
 out we know not what. " In the state of which the 
 Apostle is speaking, the mind knows not, from 
 very distraction, what it does. It is darkened as 
 in the confusion of a storm, or the din and con- 
 fusion of a battle. This is the proof that he is 
 sold under sin a blind slave." — (Joweft.) But this 
 distraction is a universal characteristic of life ; 
 it belongs to no jiarticnlar state. It is a race 
 fact ; and in society as in the individual is the 
 result of sin, which is also a race fact. No man 
 
 truly comprehends the pattern which he is weav- 
 ing by his life ; and for the reason that in his 
 daily life he acts from the impulses of the mo- 
 ment, not from deliberate and well considered 
 choice. Not what he has proposed in the morn- 
 ing does he do through the day. As a result the 
 product is hateful to him when he comes to 
 review the day, the month, the year, the life. 
 Who in the conflicts and uncertainties of life is 
 not conscious of the first proposition, in the char- 
 acter of each day's experiences does not realize 
 the second, and in the lament over wasted oppor- 
 tunities, broken resolutions, and the evil product 
 of wayward or sinful impulses blindly followed, 
 does not have forced u pon him the sense of self- 
 abhorrence indicated in the third ? 
 
 16-20. But if what I Avould not that I 
 produce. If the product of my life is con- 
 demned by my higher intelligence and will. — I 
 concur with the la vv. Literally, Iqxak vnth it. 
 My conscience utters the same testimony as the 
 law (ch. 2 : 15). — That it is good. The law says. 
 Thou shalt not covet ; when at the close of the 
 day I look back and condemn myself because I 
 have coveted, my conscience says the same thing 
 which the law had said ; only the one said it 
 before action as a warning, the other says it after 
 action as a self-condemnation. — Now then, i. e., 
 in this state of facts. — It is no more I that 
 am working out (my life). It is not the prod- 
 uct of the true I, the higher intelligence and 
 will. — But that which dwells in ine — sin. 
 This accounts for the disorganized and confused 
 character of life ; it is the jiroduct of the lower 
 and sinful nature, not of the higher and spiritual 
 nature. This is said, not for the purpose of 
 relieving the individual of the sense of moral 
 responsibility, as is evident from verse 24, but for 
 the purpose of explaining how it is that life is 
 thus at cross purposes with man's better nature. 
 Paul, sjDeaking as a poet and dramatist, person- 
 ifies sin as a separate entity dwelling within him 
 and working out his life in spite of the i^rotests 
 of his own conscience. — For I know. It is the 
 testimony of my own consciousness. — That 
 there dwells not in me, that is in my flesh. 
 In my lower animal nature ; in those impulses 
 which have their origin in the physical and sen- 
 suous world— the mere animal appetites, social 
 instincts and the like. — Any good. Good can 
 not in the moral sense be predicated of them. 
 An animal may be good as a machine may be 
 good, that is, U'^cful for its purjiose. But virtue, 
 
Cii. VII.] 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 159- 
 
 \8 l-"or I know that in me, (that is, in my flesh,) 
 ihvclleth no' {jood thing: tor to will is present with 
 inc ; but luy-iO to perforni that which is eooit I find not. 
 
 ig For'" the good that 1 would, 1 do not: but the 
 evil which I would not, that 1 do. 
 
 20 Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that 
 do it. but sin that dwelleth in me. 
 
 21 I find then a law, that, when I would do good, 
 evil is present" with me. 
 
 j 22 For I delight ° in the law of God after the in ward v 
 • man : 
 
 I ?.T, But 1 sec another law ini my members, warring- 
 i against the law of my mind, and bringing me into 
 I captivity' to the law ol sin which is in my members. 
 
 24 O" wretched man that 1 am! who shall deliver 
 me from the body of this death ? ' 
 
 25 I " thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. So 
 . then, with the mind 1 myself serve the law of God ; 
 I but with the flesh the lawr of sin. 
 
 1 Oen. 6:5....m Gal. 5 : 17.... ii Ps. 65 : 3. 
 
 ..oPs. l:2....p2Cor. 4:16: 1 Pet. 3:4... q ch. 6 : IS, 19.... r Pa. 142 : 7....8 Ps. 88:2.10: 
 77 : S-9. . . .t Ps. 88 : 5. . . .u 1 Cor. 15 : 67. 
 
 a.s the obedience to a higher law within the soul, 
 ami resistance to the animal impulse by sponta- 
 neous recognition of that higher law, can never 
 he predicated of the animal, sensuous nature. — 
 For to will is present with me, but how 
 to work out the good I liiul not. "Paul 
 presents the matter as if he were looking round 
 in his own person to discover wiiat might be 
 jjresent therein. There he sees the will to do 
 good immediately confronting him, before his 
 g;ize ; but his searching gaze fails to discover the 
 w:iy to work out the good." — {Meyer.) — For not 
 what I will, that which is £:ood, do T 
 jiroduce (as the result); but what I Avill 
 not, that Avhich is evil, that I practice 
 (the daily habit). But if Avhat I would not 
 that I produce (as the result) — it is no 
 more I that am workinj; out (my life), 
 but that which dwells in me, sin. Repeti- 
 tion of verses 16 and 17 in slightly altered 
 phraseologj-. 
 
 21. The commentaries differ in their interpre- 
 tatioa of this verse, the interpretation depending 
 upon the meaning to be given to the word law. 
 According to the English Version — and it is the 
 view of Alford, Jowett, and others — Paul refers 
 to the law of life, viz., the conflict between the 
 higher and lower nature, which shows itself in a 
 will to do good and a practice whose result is 
 evil. According to Meyer he refers to the Mosaic 
 law, in which case his meaning is, "I find then 
 that while my will is directed to the law in order 
 to do the good, the evil lies before me." Either 
 is a possible rendering ; the former agrees better 
 with the context and is the one more commonly 
 adopted by scholars. — I delight in the law of 
 God. Not merely concur with it, as above (ver. lo), 
 but rtjoiee in it. — According to the inward 
 man. Not merely the regenerate man, as Calvin 
 iirid Luther, but the super-sensuous man ; the 
 higher intelligence and conscience of universal 
 humanity recognize that the law, as interpreted 
 in the Ten Commandments or the Sermon on the 
 Mftunt, is holy, just, and good, and delights in its 
 ethical beauty. The phrase, inward man, is 
 equivalent to in my mind in the next clause. — 
 In my members. "The members us the in- 
 
 struments of activity of the flesh are, seeing 
 that the flesh itself is ruled by sin (venea :8, 25), that 
 in which the power of sin pursues its doings. 
 This activity in hand, eye, etc. (comp. 6 : 1,3, 19), is 
 directed against the dictate of the moral reason, 
 and that with the result of victory ; hence the 
 figures diawn from war, warring against and 
 bringing into captivitj^" — (Meyer.) 
 
 21,25. From the body of this death. 
 Either as Alford for " the body whose subjection 
 to the law of sin brings about this state of mis- 
 ery; " or as Jowett, "From this death which 
 clings to me as a body." The latter seems to me 
 preferable ; both because the former imputes to 
 Paul a doctrine that all sin comes from and 
 is the jjroduct of the hody, which is foreign to his 
 teaching ; and because the latter gives to the 
 passage a more profound spiritual significance. 
 Sin is like a corpse to which the soul is fastened, 
 and from which he can find no escape. But in 
 the Apostle's mind this sinful burden is identified 
 with the sensuous and animal nature ; hence he 
 naturally uses the word body. "The cry is 
 uttered, as De Wette well observes, in full con- 
 sciousness of the deliverance which Christ has 
 effected, and as leading to the expression of 
 thanks which follows. And so, and not other- 
 wise, is it to be taken." — (Alford.) — Thanks be 
 to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
 The thanksgiving of one who h;is in himself an ex- 
 perience, or at least a i)artial experience of this 
 deliverance. — So then I myself. The real I ; 
 the I which comprehends not the working out 
 of the life ; which wills to do good and hates the 
 evil. — In the mind. As the seat of the intel- 
 lect, the emotions, the affections, the higher will. 
 — But in the flesh the law of sin. Gram- 
 matically, the / myself is as applicable to the 
 second as to the first clause of the sentence, and 
 so makes the Apostle say that I myself serve the 
 law of sin. But this is one of those cases where 
 the intensity f)f the Apostle makes him disregard 
 the strict rules of speech. He has started to 
 say. Thanks be to God that I myself serve in my 
 mind the law of God ; then halts and adds as an 
 afterthought, Ilowbeit in my flesh I am still a 
 servant of sin. 
 
CHAPTER Vril. 
 
 MORE THAN COXQUERORS. 
 
 There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. For the law of 
 the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of 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 ag an offering for sin.* condemned sin in the flesh : that the *ordi- 
 nance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit, 
 For they that are after the fle^h do nund the things of the flesh ; but they that are after the 
 spirit the things of the spirit, t For the mind of the flesh is death ; but the mind of the spirit 
 is life and peace : because the mind of the flesh is enmity against God ; for it is not subject to 
 the law of God, neither indeed can it be : and they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But 
 ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit,t if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in yon. But 
 if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ is in you. the body 
 is dead because of sin ; but the spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of 
 him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you, he that raised up Christ Jesus from the 
 dead shall quicken also your mortal bodies 'through his Spirit that dwelleth in you. 
 
 So then, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh : for if ye live after 
 the flesh, ye must die ; but if by the spiiit ye *=mortifyt the 'deeds of the body, ye shall live. 
 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For ye received not the 
 spirit of bondage again unto fear ; but ye received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry. 
 Abba. Father. The Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are children of God : 
 and if children, then heirs ; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ ; if so be that we suffer 
 with him, that we may be also glorified with him. 
 
 For I reckon that the suflierings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with 
 the glorj' which shall be revealed to us-ward. For the earnest expectation of the creation 
 waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of 
 its own will, but by reason of him who subjected it, *in hope that the creation itself also shall 
 be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of 
 God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain "together uniil now. 
 .\nd not only so, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves 
 groan within oiu-selves, waiting for our adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. For by § 
 hope were we saved : but hope that is seen is not hope : '"for who "hopeth for that which he 
 seeth ? But if we hope for that which we see not, then do we a\ ith patience wait for it. 
 
 And in Uke manner the Spirit also helpeth our infirmity : for we know not how to pray as 
 we ought ; but the Spirit himself |; maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be 
 uttered ; and he that searcheth the hearts kuoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, ' ^because he 
 maketh intercession for the saints according to the trill of God. And we know that to them 
 that love God '-all things work together for good, eren to them that are called according to his 
 purpose. For whcmi he foreknew, be also foreordained to be conformed to the image of his 
 Son, that he might be the firstbom among many brethren : and whom he foreordained, them he 
 also called : and whom he called, them he also justified : and whom he justified, them he also 
 glorified. 
 
 What then shall we say to these things ? If God is for us, who is against us ? He that 
 spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not also with him freely 
 give us all things f Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect ? ''It is God that 
 justifieth ; who is he that sliall condemn ?^ ''It is Christ Jesus that died, yea rather, that was 
 raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. 
 Who shall separate us from the love "'of Christ ? shall tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, 
 or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword ? Even as it is written. 
 
 For thy sake we are killed all the day long ; 
 We were accounted as sheep for the slaughter. 
 
 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am 
 persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor 
 things to come, nor powers, nor heisrht, nor depth, nor any other ' 'creature, shall be able to 
 separate us from the love of God. which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. 
 
 1 Or, v:hereint 
 
 2 Gr. flesh of Hn, 
 
 3 Ot, and for sin. 
 * Let marg. 3 {and 
 
 for sin) and the 
 text exchange 
 places. — Am.Com. 
 
 4 Or, requirement. 
 t For spirit read 
 
 Spirit.~Am. Com. 
 
 o Many ancient 
 anthorities read 
 because of. 
 
 6 Gr. make to die. 
 J For mortify read 
 
 put to death, and 
 omit marg. 6. — 
 Am. Com. 
 
 7 Gr. doings. 
 
 8 Or, in hope ; he* 
 cause the erea- 
 tion, <tc. 
 
 9 Or, vrith us. 
 
 § For by read in 
 (with marfr. Or, 
 hy). — Am. Com. 
 
 10 Many ancient 
 authorities read 
 for what a man 
 seeth, why doth he 
 yet hope for ? 
 
 11 Some ancient 
 authoritie:^ read 
 awaiteth. 
 
 11 For himself read 
 ■ tself. — Am. Com. 
 
 12 Or, that. 
 
 13 Some ancient 
 authorities read 
 God worketh all 
 things with them 
 for good. 
 
 14 Or, Shall God 
 that justifieth ,* 
 
 15 Or, Shall Christ 
 Jesus that died, 
 «s ? 
 
 II For shall con- 
 demn read con- 
 demneth. — Am. 
 Com. 
 
 16 Some ancient 
 authorities read 
 of God. 
 
 n Or, creation. 
 
(11. \111.J l^O.MA.N.S. Itil 
 
 The eiglilh iliapter of Romans i.s not an i.ssue to whicli the seventh eliapter of Koniau.s 
 conducts ; we are not to expect to pass by a mysterious transition from the one to the otlier, 
 never to return again. The closing sentence in the seventh chapter follows Paul's shout of 
 victory : " I thank Ood," he cries, " through Jesus Christ our Lord : " but he straiglitway 
 adds, "So then with the mind I myself — the true 1 — serve the law of God, but witli the 
 lU'sh the law of sin." The conflict is a life conflict. It belongs neither to regenerate nor 
 uiiri'generate nature ; Init to nature. Paul portrays it again in the third chapter of Phil- 
 ippians : '' I count all things but loss, that I might know Christ, and the power of his resur- 
 rection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, if by any means I niiglit attain unto the 
 resurrection of tlic dead." "Not as though I liad already attained, either were ahciidy 
 perfect, but 1 follow after if that I may appreheml tliat for whicli I am a})prehended of 
 Christ Jesus." This is the life struggle of the Christian. Not till the water of the river 
 of deatli laves the feet of the entering disciple can he say, "■ I have fought a good fight, I 
 have tinished my course." Until then his woril must always l)e, " I therefore run not as 
 uncertainly ; so fight 1, not as one that beateth the air ; but I keep under my body and 
 bring it into subjection.' The eighth chapter of Romans is not victory after battle, it isll 
 hope and courage and faith in battle ; it is a portrayal of the spirit in which this battle is/j 
 to lie fought. 
 
 I. [Verses 1-13.] Sin is lawlessness. He, therefore, who is engaged in this Ijattle 
 to bring his lawless appetites and impulses under the law of Christ is not sinful. He may 
 make mistakes ; he may commit particular sins by willful violation of the law ; but he is 
 not shifuly he is not under condemnation of God, and he is not to walk under the condem- 
 nation of his own conscience. He may suffer keen regrets, but he ought not to experience 
 remorse. For God measures men not by their actions, but by their endeavors ; not by what 
 they are, but by what they are striving to become ; not by the place they occupy, but by 
 the direction in which they are moving. If then a man is walking after the things of the 
 spirit, if his direction is spiritual, if he follows after that he may apprehend that for which 
 he is appr^iended of Christ Jesus, if he runs with patience the race that is set before him, 
 if he fights a good fight, he is not condemned of God, and is not to condemn himself. But 
 if, on the contrary, his mind is set on earthly and fleshly things, if his affections are set on 
 things on the earth, not on things above, if he is carnally minded, he is none the less under 
 condemnation because a rational self-interest keeps him from the grosser violations of phys- 
 ical health or social order. The one side of this truth has been abundantly enforced by 
 evangelical i)reacliing, and nicu have been told, very truly, that if they are living unto the 
 flesh and the world they can not please God. But the converse is e(;[ually true, and it is 
 tlie converse truth which Paul empliasizes as the first word of encouragement in life's battle :i 
 if a soul is living in the spirit and unto God, he is not condemned of God, because he fallsl 
 short of the glory of God, fails even to come up to his own ideal, and often falls into error or I 
 even into specific violations of the divine law. He still remains a child of God ; God is J 
 Working with him in all his endeavors to Ijring the animal and earthly nature into subjec- i 
 tion to the spiritual ; the spirit is life because of this righteous purpose which animates it ; j 
 and the believer may rest assured that finally he will be victor, and he who raised up Christ [ 
 from the dead will make of even the mortal body ,i tcm])!!' of God, ami so truly alive | 
 through his Spirit that dwelleth in it. 
 
 II. [Verses 14-17.] He who has thus mtirt^d into a conception of God's desigm for 
 liim, and shares it, who is a co-worker with G(jd and is led by the Spirit of God, and folh>w3 
 
 . 1 
 
 » 1 Cor. 9 : 26, 27. 
 
162 . EOMANS. [Ch. VIII. 
 
 hio divine Le^ider, is a Son of God. By his faith in the God with whom in purpose he is 
 already one, with whom he will be one in character, he is emancipated from all fear of tlie 
 future, all remorse for the past, and all despair and discouragement in the present. All pagan 
 religions are religions of fear. All pagan worship is an endeavor either to drive away cruel 
 gods, or to jjropitiate offended and angry gods. This cruel falsehood, which changes the truth 
 of God into a lie, and man from a son of G«id into a slave, and religion from a filial love into 
 a servile fear, lias entered the Church of Christ and paganized it. But whether it be labeled 
 Christian or pagan, whether the God it offers for worship be called Jove, or Thor, or Jehovah, 
 it is a cruel falsehood. He whom God has justified, he who has entered into vital, personal, 
 sympathetic relations with God, he who receives life directly from him, with all the fruits 
 of life wrought in his own spirit by the indwelling Spirit of God, as in the earth its flowers 
 and fruits are wrought by the warmth of the sun, is redeemed from this fear. He knows 
 God to be his Father, and himself to be a child of God. He cries no longer to him in fear ; 
 his cry is Abba, Father, my dear Father. He is an heir of God ; inheriting not something 
 from God — as lands or bond.s are inherited by a child — but inheriting God himself, as a 
 child inherits his father's virtues. He is a joint-heir with the Lord Jesus Christ ; inheriting 
 his manger, his Gethsemane, his Calvary, but inheriting also his fellow.ship with God, and 
 all the large freedom and deep joyousness of love which tliat fellowship conferred and ever 
 confers. He is no longer in a far country ; no longer an orphaned child seeking for a 
 Father ; he is at his Father's home ; under his Father's roof ; living at his Father's side. 
 His fellowship is with all tbe saints, because their fellowship and his is with the Father and 
 with his Son Jesus Christ. 
 
 III. [Verses 18-23.] This experience of life with God radiates and tran.sforms all 
 sorrow. Sorrow and joy are no longer opposites. Joyful sorrow is no longer a self-contra- 
 diction. The bequest of Christ, bestowed just as he was going forth to wrestle with that 
 indescribable agony in the Garden, " These things have I spoken that my joy might remain 
 in you," is no longer an enigma. Suffering is no longer a problem baffling all hope and 
 faith, as well as all prying curiosity. For now he knows that suffering is no punishment of 
 an offended Lawgiver, and no accident of a careless, ignorant creature. It is a gift of a 
 Father's love. He knows that the whole creation was made subject to decay, and to all the 
 pangs which decay brings with it, in every stage through which it passes, not by the 
 creature's poor, ignorant choice ; not by the decree of an irate Deity who must be placated 
 or surfeited by suffering ; not by chance, or law, or force, more implacable even than wrath ; 
 but by Love, who hath subjected all his children, even his own only begotten Son, to pain, 
 in hope that so the creature shall Ije delivered from the bf)ndage of its corruption into the 
 glorious liberty of the children of God ; and in this faith he says softly to himself : 
 
 " He comes and lays my heart, all heated, 
 
 On tlie hard anvil, minded so 
 Into his own fair shape to lieat it 
 
 With his great hammer blow on blow. 
 And yet I whisper, As God will. 
 And at his heaviest blows hold still." 
 
 In his darkest night this star of the m<jming shines ; on his blackest cloud this bow of 
 hope is painted ; when the fountains of the great deep are broken up, and all the fair earth 
 is devastated, this faith in his Father bears him safely through the deluge. When his 
 blinded eyes can no longer look up for the tears that fill them, and the stifled voice can no 
 longer cry, Abba, Father, for the sobs that choke it, the Spirit is in his heart helping his 
 infirmities, teaching it the unspoken language of heaven, teaching it how to pray ; making 
 
Cii. VIII.] KOMAJSJS. 163 
 
 its aou'^ in the night sweeter than the song of tlw morning, tlic plaintive niglitingale of tlie 
 twilight dearer tluui the upspringing lark of the .sunshine. Then it is he knows not whether 
 he is in the body or out of the bod}' ; then it is he hears unspeakable words which it is not 
 jHissible for a man to utter. For in all experience, whether of outward pain or of inward 
 sorrow, whether of life's joy or of heart-sickness, he knows that all things are working 
 together for good to him, because he knows God and God knows him ; they understand one 
 another, and he knows that he is called into this baptism of suffering that he may fulfill 
 the purpose of infinite, divine love. 
 
 IV. [Vkuses 24-30.] For in all this, though he can not see, yet he knows the end 
 from the lieginning. He is no Columbus, setting sail upon an unknown sea, in search of 
 an unknown continent. He knows his ship, his voyage, his destination, and his Com- 
 mander. He looks with unutterable pity ofttimes on those who have to meet, armed with 
 no such faith and hope as his, the ills of life. They know not whence they came, nor where 
 they are, nor whither they are going, nor what is expected of them, nor who is master of 
 their destiny. Oh, lost child I — lost because strayed from God. Put a boy alone upon the 
 untrodden jirairie, and leave him to learn the art of cultivation by cultivating without 
 instruction ; put him alone iipon the wide ocean, and leave him to learn na\igation by 
 navigating ; biit put him not in life to learn how to live by living. The child of God is no 
 lost child. He is with his Father. He knows whence he came, for he came forth from his 
 Father ; he knows where he is, for he is with his Father ; he knows whither he is going, 
 for he is going to his Father's home ; he knows what is expected of him, for it is expected 
 of him only that he will be a loving, trusting son of a loving, life-giving Father ; he knows 
 who is the Master of his destiny, for his past, his present, and his future are in his Father's 
 liands. And his Father has chosen him to be conformed to the image of Christ his Lord ; 
 to this has called him ; for this has reclaimed him ; and into this glorious perfection will 
 bring him, even him, at last. 
 
 V. [Verses 31-39.] What, then, can he fear I If God, the Everlasting and the 
 Almighty, is for him, who can be against him ? Shall he fear God I shall the vine fear the 
 gardener ? Shall he fear Christ / shall the accused fear his advocate I And he who is the 
 Advocate is also the Judge, appointed Judge because he is a son of man, and knows by ex- 
 perience all the sorrows, the temptations, the limitations of a human life, and human 
 nature. There is but one thing to fear — separation from God ; and who shall separate God's 
 child, Chri.st's saved one, from the tenacious grasp of Christ ? For what is so tenacious as 
 love ? or what love is .S(j tenacious as the love of Christ I " Shall tribulation, or distress, or 
 persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword ? Nay ; in all these things we are 
 more than con^ueror-s, through him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, 
 nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 
 nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of 
 God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Not death ; for death does but o])en the door out 
 of what we call life, which is but a .slow <lying, and translates us into the invisible and 
 the incorruptible. Not life ; for life is but the school which God has organized to teach 
 us to know him. Not angels, nor principalities, nor powers; for all the spirits of good 
 are God's minister.-, making ha.ste to do his ble.s.sed Ijidding. Not even the Spirit o( Evil, 
 for— 
 
 " Since God siifl'crs him to be, 
 He, too, is Gixl's iniiiister, 
 And labors for some good 
 By us not understood." 
 
164 EOMANS. [Ch. VIII. 
 
 Not things present, for they are his instruments ; nor things to come, for the future is God's 
 own nest, and all its events are brooded by him ; not height, for if I ascend up into 
 heaven, thou art there ; not depth, for if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there ; 
 nor any other created thing. And all things are created except him, and he is the Creator, 
 and the Creator is my Lover, my Father, my Husband, my God. 
 
 " And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus 
 Christ wliom thou hast sent." 
 
Cii. VllI.J 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 165 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ri IHERE IS, therefore, now no* condemnation to 
 -^ them whitli are in Christ Jesus, who walk'' not 
 after the tlesh, but alter the Spirit. 
 
 2 For the law ot the Spirit of life ^' in Christ Jesus 
 hath made me free'' from the law of sin and death. 
 
 ? I'oi what the law could not' do, in that it was 
 weak throuiih the flesh, God, sending liis own Sonf in 
 the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin 
 in the flesh : 
 
 4 That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled 
 in us, who walk* not after the flesh, but after the 
 Spirit. 
 
 5 For lliey that are after the flesh i" do mind the things 
 of the flesh ; but they that are after the Spirit, the things' 
 of the Spirit. 
 
 6 For to be carnally minded is death ;' but to be 
 spiritually minded ts life and peace: 
 
 7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God ; 
 lor it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed 
 can be. 
 
 a John 3 : 18. . . .b Qal. 5 : 16. . . .c 2 Cor. 3 : 6. 
 
 : 1. . . .e Acts 13 : 39 ; Hcb 7 : 18, 19. 
 .ilCor. 2:14....j Gal. 6 : 8. 
 
 .f Gal. 3: 13. .. .g vcr. 1. . . .b John 3 :6 ; 
 
 Ch. 8 : FROM GK.XCE TO GLORY.— The two laws: 
 
 OF DEATH AND OF LIFE. — ThE WE.VKNESS OF LAW; 
 THE POWEi! OF GRACE.— The TKUE MEASfKK OF CHAJl- 
 ACTEI! : rUKPOSE NOT ACUIEVE.MENT. — MiNDING THE 
 
 FLESH, death; minding the spirit, LIFE.— To be 
 Christ's is to possess Christ.— The Christian's 
 GREAT obligation (ver. I'i). — Who are sons of God ? 
 
 ALL WHO accept God's LEADERSHIP. — THE SPIRIT OF 
 adoption AND THE SPIRIT OF BONDAGE CONTRASTED. — 
 If CHILDREN, THEN HEIRS. — WHAT WE INHERIT : GLORT 
 THROTGH SUFFERING. — ThE CHRISTIAN'S BALANCE 
 
 ^HEET fver. 18). — The world's unrest is God's 
 PROPHET of GLORT (vcrses U»-A3). — The saving power 
 OF hope. — The jitstert of prayer : unuttered 
 t oji.MuxiNGs with God.— Love designs the pattern 
 
 FOR life's loom, AND LOVE WILL PERFECT THE FABRIC 
 
 (ver. ;i8i.— The end of predestination : our con- 
 formity to the image op God's Son. — Three unan- 
 swerable questions : can God accuse us ? can 
 Christ condemn us ? can enemies estrange us 
 from ol'b God ? — The earthly song of the re- 
 deemed OF the Lord (verses 37-.39). 
 
 1-5. There is therefore now, /. c, under 
 the Gospel. — No condeniiiatioii to those that 
 are in Christ Jesus. United to liim as the 
 branch to the vine, and so drawing their life from 
 liim (see ih. ■ : 4, irnu). LovB does Dot Condemn the 
 infirmities and imperfections of sincere service. — 
 M'lio walk not, etc. This clause is wanting in 
 the best text ; it has probablj' been transposed 
 here from verse 4.— For the law of the Spirit 
 of life in Christ Jesus. For explanation of 
 this phrase, see ciiap. vii., on Paul's Doc- 
 trine of Redemption. The word law is used with 
 the meaning which attaches to it in the phrase, 
 "law of nature." As the mineral sub-tance, ab- 
 sorbed by and changed into the plant, is delivered 
 from the law of the mineral by coming under 
 the law of the vegetable kingdom, so the soul is 
 delivered from the law of sin and death by being 
 brought under the law of life in Christ Jesus. — 
 For what the law could not do, etc. The 
 construction is irregular and difficult; but the 
 meaning is clear. The law, which is holy, just, 
 and good (ch. ; ; 12) is represented as trying to set 
 men right ; it fails ; it is not strong enough to 
 overcome the flesh ; something more potent is 
 necessary ; that something more potent God 
 furnishes. — Ciod sending his own Son. Paul 
 uniformly recognizes the pre-existenc-eof Christ, 
 
 and the love of God as the cause of his coming. 
 Christ does not merely come ; he is sei/t. — In 
 the likeness of sinful flesh. Rather, In the 
 likeness of the fle.sh of sin, i.e., "that flesh 
 whose attributes and character were sin." — 
 {AlJ'ord.) — And for sin. Not as in New Version, 
 As an offering for sin. " The ' for,' or ' on account 
 of,' sin, is at present indefinite, and not to be re- 
 stricted to Christ's death as sin-offering, which 
 is not just now the subject." — (Alford, Joweft, 
 Meyer.) — Condemned sin in the flesh. This 
 is not the thing which the law could not do ; this 
 the law has done (ch. 7 : 13). What the law could 
 not do is what God is stated in vcr. 4 to have 
 done, fulfilled righteousness in us. — That the 
 righteous decrees of the law might be 
 fulfilled in us (comp. Matt, s ■. n -, 1 Tim. 1:5). The 
 end of the law is a righteous character ; this end 
 is fulfilled by what grace gives and faith receives. 
 — Who walk not after the flesh, etc. That 
 is, whose aim or purpose is not fleshly but spir- 
 itual ; after (y.uru) signifying not the rule or law 
 of the walk, but the purpose which ctmLrols and 
 the end toward which it tends (comp. s Tim. 1 : i -, 
 Tit. 1 : II. Under the law men are judged by what 
 they do ; under grace by the purity and earnest- 
 ness of their purpose : under law by their action, 
 under grace by their direction. — For they that 
 are after the flesh, etc. It is the direction of 
 the life Avhich determines the bent and character 
 of the mind ; if one is living to gratify his earthlj' 
 nature his mind will be set on earthly things ; if 
 to gratify his spiritual nature, his mind will be 
 set on spiritual things. Comp. Col. 3 : 1, 2. 
 
 6>9. For the minding of the flesh. The 
 mind ((pnortjuu) is "what one has in mind, what 
 one thinks, feels, wills." — {Robinson's Lex.) The 
 mind that is set on, occupied with, devoted to 
 earthly things is death, not merelj' leads to death ; 
 on the other hand, the mind similarly devoted to 
 spiritual things is life and peace, not merely has 
 a promise of future blessedness. Observe that 
 a single-minded devotion to the kingdom of God 
 is here, as in Matt. : 24, 25, etc., declared to be 
 the secret of peace, as in ch. 7 the mind divided 
 between spiritual and earthly things is shown to 
 be the secret of perpetual soul conflict. — Where- 
 fore, Because this life is death to his children, 
 
166 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 [Cii. VIII. 
 
 8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please 
 God. 
 
 9 But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so 
 be that the Spirit of God dwell'' in you. Now if any 
 man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. 
 
 10 And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because 
 of sin ; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 
 
 11 But 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 his 
 Spirit that dwelleth in you. 
 
 12 There. ore, brethren, we are debtors, not ™ to the 
 flesh, to live after the flesh. 
 
 13 For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die : but if 
 ye through the Spirit do mortify" the deeds of the body, 
 ve shall live. 
 
 k 1 Cor. 6:19; Gal. 4:6 12 Cor. 4 : 14 . 
 
 therefore it is hateful to the Father. — The mind- 
 ing of the flesh is enmity against God. Be- 
 ware of i-eading this passage as though there were 
 two minds, a spiritual and a carnal mind ; and 
 that one mind is acceptable and the other unac- 
 ceptable to God in aU they severally do. The 
 meaning is not ambiguous. If a man's mind is 
 set on earthly things, his purposes for himself and 
 God's purposes for him are at war, and can not 
 be reconciled ; if, conversely, his mind is set on 
 spiritual things, they are at one, and he is not 
 brought under condemnation because he some- 
 times fails in his life purpose. Man is measured 
 by the great ends of his being (comp. ch. 2 : e-io, 
 and notes), and neither approved because sometimes 
 in the pursuit of wordly ends he is obedient to 
 spiritual laws, nor condemned because sometimes, 
 in spite of his pursuit of unwordly ends, he 
 lapses into infraction of spiritual laws. — For it 
 is not subject to the law of God, neither 
 indeed can be. Because the end of the law is 
 a soul obedient to love and in harmony with God 
 (ps. 19 : 7-9 ; comp. 1 Tim 1 : s), and a mind devoted to 
 self and ruled by flesh can not be subject to that 
 law. It is idle for a man whose mind is set on 
 earthly things to imagine that he can righten 
 himself by obedience to God's law ; for that mind 
 is itself a disobedient mind.— They that are 
 in the flesh. " Those who are in the flesh as 
 the ethical life-element in which they subsist, 
 and which is the opposite of ' in the Spirit ' (ver. 9) 
 and ' in Christ ' (ver. 1). The one excludes the 
 other, and the former, as antagonistic to God, 
 makes the pleasing of God (comp. 1 xhess. 2 : 15 ; 4 : 1) 
 an impossibility." — (Meyer.) — But ye. Thedis- 
 ciples of Christ. — Are not in the flesh but in 
 the Spirit. The spirit, not the flesh, is the end, 
 and furnishes the law of being of such an one. — 
 If the Spirit of God dwell in you. Comp. 
 John 14 : 19, 23. The whole of this chapter is 
 interpreted by John, chs. 14 and 15. — If any one 
 have not the Spirit of Christ. Either a 
 spirit like that of Christ (Luke 9 : 55), or the in- 
 dwelling spirit of Christ himself, as a life-giving 
 power (John 16 : n ; 15 : 4). As the two are not 
 dissociated in actual experience, nor in the mind 
 of the Apostle, it is not important to distinguish 
 between the two. 
 
 10, II. But if Christ be in you. That 
 is, notwithstanding that Christ is in you. — The 
 
 body indeed is dead because of sin. It con- 
 tinues to be dead. The commentaries generally 
 interpret this as equivalent to. Is liable to death; 
 but this is not what Paul says, and there is noth- 
 ing ill the context to indicate that this is what he 
 means. The body is the man viewed in his phys- 
 ical and earthly condition. For this use of the 
 word by Paul, see ch. 12 : 1 ; Ephes. .5 : 28 ; Phil. 
 1 : 20. Notwithstanding Christ is in you, the 
 earthly man is dead because of sin, which is not 
 yet entirely vanquished. Comp. ch. 7 : 18. — But 
 the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 
 The righteousness is not something to be achieved 
 by obedience to law, but something already 
 imparted as a free gift, and carries life with it 
 (ch. 6 : 22, 23). — He that raised up Christ from 
 the dead will quicken (make alive) your 
 mortal bodies. He does not say wUl raise vp. 
 Why not ? Because it is not of a physical renewal 
 he is speaking. His meaning is to be interpreted 
 by the aim and purpose of the whole passage, 
 which is to set forth the redemption in its full- 
 ness. With the mind, he says, I myself serve the 
 law of God, but in the flesh the law of sin. But 
 if this be true, if my mind is set to God's service, 
 he does not condemn me ; I am re-united to hiir ; 
 and though in my mortal body, i. f., in its animal 
 appetites and lusts, sin and death still linger, 
 nevertheless, he who has proved his power over 
 the body by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, wUl 
 bring the body also into obedience to the law of 
 spirit and of life, and make it also to live. — By 
 his Spirit that dwelleth in you. It is not 
 by the Holy Spirit dwelling in the mortal decay- 
 ing body that it is raised from the grave ; but it 
 is by the Holy Spirit dwelling within our spirits, 
 that the body itself is redeemed from its law of 
 death, and made obedient to spiritual laws. 
 
 12-14. In what follows, Paul sets forth in 
 terms of Christian experience, the results of re- 
 demption. Verses 12-17 state the first result ; a 
 new relationship to God, that of sons, carrying 
 with it a new and divine life. — Wherefore, 
 brethren, we are under obligation. Writing 
 to those whose whole conception of religion is of 
 an obligation to be fulfilled, Paul adopts their 
 phraseology and their point of view • for the 
 moment. Granted that religion is doing one's 
 duty ; one can not do his duty by living to the 
 flesh. He owes no loyalty to the flesh. — For if 
 
(11. \ UI.j 
 
 KOMANS. 
 
 107 
 
 14 For as many as are led" by the Spirit of God, they 
 are the sons of (lod. 
 
 15 For ye have not received the spirit of bondage p 
 again to fear ; but' ye have received the Spirit of aiiop- 
 iion/ whereby we cry. .\bba, Father. 
 
 16 The Spirit itself beareth witness" with our spirit, 
 tlat we are the children of God : 
 
 17 And if rhlldrcn, then heirs;' lieirs of God, and 
 joint-heirs with Christ;" if so be that we suffer with 
 him, that we may be also gloritied together. 
 
 18 For 1 reckon * that the sufferings of this present 
 lime are not worthy to be compared with the glory 
 which shall be revealed in us. 
 
 •li\ I. John 4 ; i:t....t AcH 26 : 18 ; 1 Ptt. 1 : 4. 
 
 ye live after the flesh ye must die. (utV-Xtrt 
 ««o'>it;.->fti).) Death is in that case a necessity ; it 
 is XL accordance with the divine order, the abso- 
 hitenuturc of thini^s. Comp. Gen. 2 : 17 ; James 
 1 : 1").— But if by the Spirit. The Spirit of 
 God given by grace and received by faith, and 
 dwelling within, the power of a new and divine 
 life. — Ye do put to death the practices of 
 thf body. Comp. Gal. 5 : l'.)-21 ; Col. 3 : \ (!. 
 — Ye shall live. Observe that the secret of 
 life is not merely putting to death the practices 
 of the body, i. e., asceticism ; but putting them 
 to death b>/ (he Spirit, I. c, by the power of (jod 
 received into the soul. Comp. Matt. 12 : 4;^-45 ; 
 Rom. 12 : 2. — For as many as are led by the 
 Spirit of God. A repetition in different form 
 of ver. 1. He is a child of (Jod who follows God's 
 lead ; who is an imitator of God (Ephes. s : i) ; 
 whose mind is set on spiritual things (ver. e) ; who 
 seeks first the kingdom of God and his righteous- 
 ness (Matt. 5 : ss). He has not overtaken God ; 
 but he follows hard after him. — They are the 
 sous of God. Their relation, as more fully ex- 
 plained in the verses following, is that not of 
 servitude but of sonship. What this relation of 
 fionship implies, Paul proceeds to open before 
 his readers. 
 
 15-17. For ye have not received the 
 spirit of bondag:e again to fear. The spirit 
 of being bound by law enforced by fear of ])enalty. 
 Again implies a return to the old Jewish notion 
 of the relation between God and man as one 
 between a moral governor and his subject. Comp. 
 Luke 15 : 19; 2:2-24. — But ye have received 
 the spirit of adoption. Rather of sonship. 
 Elsewhere the Christian is declared to be born of 
 God (John 3 : .3, 8 ; 1 John 5 : 1,4, is). We are children 
 of God, not merely because he adopts us as his 
 children, but also because the new life within us 
 is received from him. — In which we cry. 
 Shout ; the language implies exultation. — Abba, 
 Father. Abba is nearly equivalent to our word 
 papa, which is derived from it ; it is thu.s an ex- 
 pre8>ion of intimacy and endearment. Luther 
 well renders it "dear Father." Comp. Mark 
 14 : 36. Paul puts into our months the same 
 address employed by Christ in the hour of closest i 
 fellowship with the Father in the anguish of 
 (Jethsi-mane. — The Spirit. Spirit of God. — 
 Bears witness with our spirit that we are i 
 
 children of God. The original {Tixv,<) implies 
 not merely relationship, but origin ; not merely 
 adopted, but begotten of God. The evidence of 
 this is afforded by a witness of the Spirit of God 
 w ith our spirit ; as lilial relations between a child 
 and his mother are attested by the sympathy 
 of soul with soul. In both cases it is a spiritual, 
 not a merely genealogical or sci(Mitilic attestntion. 
 — But if children, then heirs; — yea! (fiii) 
 heirs of God. Not inheritors of something 
 from God, but inheritors of God himself (2 Pet. 1 : 4 ; 
 Heb. 12 : 10). — And joint-heirs with Christ. 
 So that he is the lirst born among many brethren 
 (^ver. 29), and we become one with the Father even 
 as Christ is one with the Father (John n : 21). 
 There is scarcely a word used in the N. T. de- 
 scription of the Christ that is not in a modified 
 form used in describing his disciples. He is the 
 only begotten Son of God, and we are sons of 
 God ; he is the Light of the world, and we are 
 lights in the world ; he is the King of kings and 
 the Great High Priest, and we are kings and 
 priests unto God ; he is the Lamb of God, and we 
 are bid to be a sacrifice unto God ; he is the bright- 
 ness of God's glory and the express image of his 
 person, and we are to be glorified together with 
 him, and to be conformed to his image ; in him 
 dwelleth all the fullness of the godhead bodily, 
 and we are bid to pray that we being rooted and 
 grounded in Christ may be filled with all the 
 fullness of God. These and other passages inti- 
 mat(i the meaning of the declaration that we are 
 joint -heirs with Christ. — If so be that we suffer 
 with him. Not merely suffer, but suffer with 
 him. Share his passion, know by experience the 
 burden of the world's sin. We are heirs with him 
 both of his ser\'ice and of his sacrifice. — That we 
 may be also glorirted together. John 17 : 22 ; 
 2 Cor. 3 : IS. If we share liis travail, we also 
 shall see of (fu; travail of our souls and be satis- 
 fied (Isaiah 5.! : ii) ; but uot otherwise ( 2 Tim. 2 : 11-13). 
 18, 19. The second result of redemption, 
 victory over and glory in tribulation (i«-28). — I 
 reckon. The language iini)lies a computation, 
 comparing the balance between suffering and the 
 glory of character they produce. — Are not 
 worthy to be compared with the glory. 
 Comp. 2 Cor. 5 : 17 ; ch. 5 : 3-.5 ; Heb. 12 : 11.— 
 Which shall be revealed in us. Itisaglory 
 not so much revealed to as descending upon us. 
 
168 
 
 ROMA^'8. 
 
 [Ch. VIII. 
 
 19 For the earnest expectation of the creature waileth 
 for the manifestation ot the sons of God. 
 
 20 For the creature was made subject to vanity, not 
 willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected 
 the same in hope ; 
 
 21 Because '* thecreature itself also shall be delivered 
 from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty 
 of the children of God. 
 
 22 For we know that the whole creation groaneth 
 and travaileth in pain together until now. 
 
 23 And not only tkey^ but ourselves also, which have 
 the tirstfruits^ of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan ^ 
 within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to zuii, the 
 redemption^ of our body. 
 
 24 For we are saved by hope : but hope that is seen, 
 is not hope : for what a man seeth, why doth he »et 
 hope " for ? 
 
 w 2 Pet. 3 : 13 .... X Ephes. 1 : 14 .... y 2 Cor. 5 : 2, 4 . 
 
 Luke 21 : 28 a 2 Cor. 
 
 wrought ill. US, making us its subjects and recip- 
 ients. It is that glory of which we perpetually 
 come short in this life (ch. 3 : i?.)\ into which we pass 
 by successive stages from glory to glory ( 2 cor. s-is); 
 the glory which shone in the face of Jesus 
 Christ (2 Cor. 4:6); that is begotten in his children 
 by him who is therefore called the Father of 
 gloiy (Eph. 1 : n) ; the glory of love and sacrifice, 
 and therefore a glory of mystery not compre- 
 hended by the world (Coi. i : 27) ; the glory of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ (2 xhess. 2 : u), into which by 
 his redemption he brings many sons (iieb. 2 : 10). — 
 For the earnest expectation of the cre- 
 ation. The whole creation is figured as looking 
 earnestly for something. The figure is interpreted 
 by Ps. 130 : 6.— Waiteth for the revelation 
 of the sons of God. The uncovering, as though 
 beneath a veil the sonship was concealed, to be 
 revealed, or as though in the marble the statue 
 dwelt to be uniraprisoned by the sculptor's art. 
 The unrest of humanity, its eager pressing for- 
 ■\vard for something, it knows not what, is inter- 
 preted as the yearning of the undeveloped 
 spirit in man for the full disciplesliip of his 
 divine possibilities. This is the language of the 
 Prodigal in the far country, which leads him 
 back to hi- Father (Luke 15 : n, is). 
 
 20, 21. For the creation was made sub- 
 ject to decay. Literally, frailty, transitiveness ; 
 out of ivhich grow the chief tribulations of life, 
 whether individual or social. — Not of its own 
 will. This is due to no voluntary act of the 
 creation. — Bnt by reason of him who hath 
 subjected the same. The frailty and transi- 
 tiveness of life is due to a divine design. It is 
 the will of God. Why ?— In the hope that the 
 creation itself also shall be delivered from 
 the bondage of corruption. Not from de- 
 pravity, but from the process of degeneracy and 
 decay. God ordains suffering in the hope that 
 it will vanquish death. He drives Adam and 
 Eve out of the garden into the wilderness be- 
 cause the discipline of the wilderness is necessary 
 to the redemption of a divine manhood. — Into 
 the freedom of the glory of the children 
 of God. Not the glorious liberty. '• The free- 
 dom is described as consisting in, belonging to. 
 being one component part of the glorified state 
 of the children of God." — {Alford.) In popular 
 
 conception, glory is the product of liberty ; in 
 Paul's conception, liberty is the product of glory. 
 We enter into freedom as we enter into that flory 
 of character which belongs to the children of 
 God. 
 
 22-25. For we know that the whole 
 creation groaneth and travaileth in pain 
 together until now. From the beginning up 
 to the present time, the experience of pain i.s an 
 tmiversal experience. The very figure (travaileth) 
 implies that the pain itself is a prophecy of a nsw 
 created world to be born out of the pain (coop. 
 John 16 : 21). — And uot onlv (this) but also we 
 ourselves (though) we possess the first fruits 
 of the Spirit. As the fir.-t fruits were prophetic 
 of the harvest to come, so the earthly experiences 
 of the spiritual life are prophetic of the fuller 
 glory which shall be revealed in the consumma- 
 tion of the divine life. — Even we ourselves 
 groan together within ourselves. The 
 pangs of the outer creation are repeated in the 
 spiritual unrest and travail of the inward life. — 
 Waiting for the sonship. That is, for the 
 perfection and consummation of it. We are the 
 children (begotten) of God (ver. le) ; and if led by 
 and following the Spirit of God, have already 
 received the spirit of sonship (verses 14, 15) ; and 
 yet we wait for the sonship, i. e., for its consumma- 
 tion (comp. 1 John 3 : 1-3). Christian experience oscil- 
 lates between these two experiences; sometimes 
 the sense of rest in sonship, sometimes the eager 
 waiting for its consummation, predominating. — 
 The redemption of our body. With the 
 mind I myself (the real I) serve the law of God ; 
 but with the flesh the law of sin (ch. ? : 25). Yet 
 while still in this condition of imperfect service, 
 1 groan within myself, waiting for the end of re- 
 demption, when the body will be redeemed from 
 the law of sin, and be itself offered a living sac- 
 rifice, holy and acceptable to God (ch. 12 : 1). — 
 For by hope are we saved. "Hope is in fact 
 faith in its prospective attitude." — {Tlioluck.) — 
 But hope that is seen is not hope. If we 
 already had full experience of sonship, there 
 would be no more room for hope, so none for 
 progress in the divine life. — But if we hope 
 for that we see not, then do we with pa- 
 tience wait for it. Patience {vnauirij) is 
 literally remaining under. If we realize that 
 
(11. Vlll.) 
 
 i;o.MA.N\S. 
 
 fUl 
 
 ■■>5 »U 
 witli patience wait lor //. 
 
 26 Likewise tlic Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: 
 for we know ni>l what we shouUI pray for as we ought : 
 but ""the Spirit itself inaketh intercession for us with 
 groanings which cannot be uttered. 
 
 27 And hc^ that searcheth the hearts knoweth what 
 
 IS the niin<l of the Spirit, because he inaketh interces- 
 sion for the saints acconlinp: '' to //u- ivill 0/ God. 
 
 28 And we know •■ that all things work together for 
 godd to tlieni that love God, to them who are the called 
 accordinji to liis purpose. 
 
 29 For whom he did foreknow, ' he also did predes- 
 tinate to be conformed to tile image of his Son, that he 
 might be the tirstborn among many brethren. 
 
 b Zirh. \i : 10 . 
 
 Jer. 17 : 10: Ri' 
 
 . a 1 John 5:14. 
 
 . e Ps. 46 : 1, i; Heb. 12 : ft-li'. . . .f 1 Pet. 1 
 
 tribulation is itself the means of working out 
 in us an exceeding- great and eternal weight of 
 glory, we shall not seek to escape from it ; we 
 shall willingly remain under it and wait for it to 
 work out in us the peaceable frnits of righteous- 
 ness. 
 
 26-28. Likewise also the Spirit. The 
 Spirit of God dwelling within us. — Ilelpeth 
 (literally, lays hold along with) ; he who carries 
 our sins also bears our griefs (isa. 5:; : 4) ; but this 
 he does not bj- taking them off from us, but by 
 laying hold of Miem with us and helping us to 
 bear them. — Our infirinity. lie makes our 
 we:ikness strength (•.' cor. vi -. 10). — For we know 
 not what we should pray for as we ought. 
 That is, neither the things to be desired nor the 
 spirit with which to make known our requests, 
 (iur thought of the possibilities of human expe- 
 rience and the greatness of God's grace are too 
 small. Does, then, God refuse to hear our praj'ers? 
 Not at all. lie teaches us how to pray. He turns 
 our needs into desires, our desires into prayers, 
 our prayers into gifts. — But the Spirit inter- 
 cedes for us. As the father interprets the 
 wants of the child, which the child does not him- 
 self understand, and so intercedes with himself 
 for his own, so God is represented as interpreting 
 to himself our needs, and thus interceding with 
 
 himself for us (comp. Ueb. 4 : i:i; jMatt. 6 : s). ThcrC 
 
 is no hint here of the intercession by one per.son 
 of the Trinity with another person of the Trinity, 
 as though the latter was hard to be entreated. — 
 \\'ith unutterable groanings. Those aspi- 
 rations which in our highest spiritual expe- 
 rience defy all attempts to formulate in lan- 
 guage, Paul treats as being begotten of the 
 inspiration of God (comp. Epiv 3 : 20; 6 : is). — But 
 he that searcheth the hearts. Not alone 
 for the evil which we conceal from ourselves and 
 from others (p«. 139 : 23), but also for the good 
 which defies all articulate expression. — Know- 
 eth what is the mind of the Spirit. Those 
 a~i)i rat ions which give rise to urmttered groan- j 
 inirs, and which we can not understand, he who I 
 has awakened them in us, comprehends.— That j 
 lie intercedes for the saints accordin;; to ' 
 the will of (iod. So th:it the desires which 
 lie has awakened in us, and wliich we ourselves 
 can neither comprehend nor express, are accord- 
 ing to his will. — And we know. How ? By 
 
 the intuition of love. As the child is sure that 
 all things in the household are wrought together 
 by the parents for the good of the children, 
 though much in their method he may be unable 
 to understand. For Paul's use of know as an 
 expression of experience, see Introduction, p. 87. 
 This conviction of love rests upon God's gift of 
 his own Son (ver. :«).— That all things work 
 together for good to them that love Ciod. 
 Only hope and faith in and love for God can learn 
 sorrow's . lesson. Comp. eh. .5 : 3, etc., where 
 glorying in tribulation is attributed only to those 
 who have been justilii'd by faith ; 'i Cor. 4 : 17, 
 18, where the working out of the eternal weight 
 of glory is only for those who walk by faith, not 
 by sight; and, Ileb. 17:11, where trilmlation 
 worketh out the peaceable fruits of righteousness 
 only to those who are exercised thereby. Sorrow 
 hardens as well as softens, deadens as well as 
 quickens, separates from as well as brings to God. 
 — To them that are called. The called are 
 those who are invited as to a feast, and hence 
 those who have accepted the invitation. For the 
 Scrijiture illustration of the called and the not 
 called, see Luke 14 : 10-^4, where those that were 
 bidden and made excuse (ver. 24) are shut out from 
 the future invitation ; and. Matt. 22 : 11-14, where 
 the man who had accepted the invitation, but 
 had not prepared himself projierly to honor the 
 feast, is cast out. — According to his purpose. 
 Wliich purpose Paul proceeds to set forth in the 
 following verses ; it is that thej' may be con- 
 formed to the imagL' of his Son. All things then 
 work together for irood to those who love (iod, 
 who accept his invitation to glory and honor and 
 immortality, and who recognize his purpose to 
 work out in tliem, through suffering, a perfect 
 manhood after tlie pattern afforded by the life 
 and character of Christ Jesus. 
 
 21), 30. For whom he did foreknt>w he 
 also did predestinate to be conformed to 
 the image of his Son. The emphasis in this 
 sentence is on the last clause ; modern disputants 
 in theology have put it on the first clause, and so 
 misread the text. The Jews universally believed 
 in foreordination ; it was not Paul's purpose to 
 teach them that ; but they did not realize that 
 the end of foreordination was a godly character. 
 Their interpretation and the spiritual interpreta- 
 tion of foreordination are put in sharp contrast by 
 
170 
 
 EOMANS. 
 
 [Ch. VIII. 
 
 30 Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he 
 also called :^ and whom he called, them he also justi- 
 fied : h and whom he justified, them he also glorified.' 
 
 31 What shall we then say to these things ? If J God 
 ie for us. who can be against us ? 
 
 32 He" that spared not his own Son, but delivered 
 him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely 
 give us all things ? 
 
 33 Who' shall lay any thing to the charge of God's 
 elect ? If^ is God that justifieth. 
 
 34 Who is he that condemneth ? It is Christ that 
 
 died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at 
 the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession 
 for us. 
 
 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? 
 shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, 
 or nakedness, or peril, or sword ? 
 
 36 As it is written," For thy sake we are killed all 
 the day long ; we are accounted as sheep for the 
 slaughter. 
 
 37 Nay, in ° all these things we are more than con- 
 querors, through him p that loved us. 
 
 g Heb. 9: 15.... h 1 Cor. 6 : ll....i John 17 :22....j Ps. 118 : 6....k ch. 5 : 6-10 lis. 50: 8, 
 
 15 ; 30,31 o 1 Cor. 15 : 57. . . .p Jude 24. 
 
 1 Rev. 12 :10, 11 n Ps. 44 : 22 ; 1 Cor. 
 
 John the Baptist (Matt. 3 : 9). What Paul teaches 
 here is that the end of God's purpose in redemp- 
 tion is the transformation of the character of the 
 redeemed, so that they shall be conformed to the 
 image of Christ his Son. Whether God's fore- 
 ordination is dependent on foreknowledge, or 
 God's foreknowledge is dependent on his foreor- 
 dination, is not in the Apostle's thought. The 
 end of both foreknowledge and foreordinatioii is 
 Christian character. — That he might be the 
 first bor n , etc. See note on ver. 17. — W horn he 
 did foreordain them he also called. His 
 call was for the purpose involved in liis foreknow- 
 ledge and foreordination ; it was that they might 
 be children of God. — And Avhom he called, 
 them he also rightened. Having purposed 
 to conform them to the image of his Son, and 
 having called them for that purpose, he began 
 himself to work out that transformation of char- 
 acter by begetting in them a new and divine life. 
 — And whom he rightened them he also 
 glorified. The whole work is with a prophetic 
 eye seen to be accomplished while it is yet in the 
 state of being accomplished. Paul leaps over 
 the intervening space of time and sees the end of 
 the purpose, the call, and the Tightening, in the 
 final glorific;ition. To read this as Paul's limita- 
 tion of God's mercy to a special elect class ap- 
 pears to me to wholly misapprehend the entire 
 spirit and aim of the Apostle, which is to show 
 the end of redemption in a Christian character, 
 and the assertion of its accomplishment in 
 that the whole process originates in and is carried 
 on by omnipotent love. 
 
 31-35. What shall we then say to these 
 things? "What answer can the hesitating or 
 discouraged find to this array of the merciful 
 acts of God's love in behalf of the believer ? " — 
 {Alfurd.)~\i God be for us, Avho can be 
 against us ? From the experience of almost 
 despair to which the seventh chapter of Romans 
 conducted, Paul emerges into the light of hope 
 through this strong faith in r^n Almighty God. 
 Comp. Ps. 37 : 1 ; 118 : 6 ; Heb. 18 : 6.— He that 
 spared not his own Son. Observe how here 
 as elsewhere the offering of Christ is ty not to 
 the Father, and as a revelation of his love, not as 
 mx appeasement of his wrath (john 3 : 16 ; i John 4 : 9). 
 
 — But freely delivered him up for us all. 
 
 Observe — all. Could the Apostle liave said this, 
 if he had been meaning to teach that the benefits 
 of redemption were confined to an elect, fore- 
 ordained, chosen few? — How shall he not 
 with him also freely give us all things? 
 The greater includes the less. The assertion 
 of God's love is affirmed by the gift of his 
 Son ; the love that thus attests itself can be 
 trusted in the mystery of pain and sorrow. — 
 Who shall bring any thing against God's 
 elect ? There is no condemnation to them that 
 are in Christ Jesus. How can there be ? Who 
 can condemn ? What follows it seems to me 
 better to take as a series of questions rather than 
 as questions and statements, as in both the Old 
 and New Version. Either construction is gram- 
 matically legitimate ; the one I have adopted 
 seems to me most forcible. Who shall lay any 
 charge against God's elect ? Shall God ? He 
 who righteneth them ? Who is he that con- 
 demneth ? Is it Christ ? He that died and is 
 interceding for them ? What then shall separate 
 us from the love of God ? Shall tribulation, etc. ? 
 Each question is thus left without an answer ; it 
 answers itself. E.xcept that to the la.'it Paul's 
 answer is given in verses 37-39. — From the 
 love of Christ. Christ's love to us is the ground 
 of Paul's confidence in the future. He has not 
 yet gotten such firm hold on Christ as to be free 
 of all fear, but pursues that he may apprehend 
 that for which he was apprehended of Christ 
 Jesus. Phil. 3 : 12, 13. 
 
 36-39. As it is w^ritten. The quotation is 
 from Ps. 44 : 2'2. — More than conquerors. 
 3fore ; because tribulation is not merely con- 
 quered and put under foot ; but converted and 
 made a means' of blessing and a cause of glory, 
 ch. 5 : 3 ; 2 Cor. 13 : 9 ; James 1:2; Matt. 5 : 12 ; 
 1 Pet. 4 : 13.— Through him that loved us. 
 It is his love in tribulation which transforms it 
 from an enemy into a friend. — I am persuaded. 
 The conclusion of the whole matter; but the 
 conclusion of spiritual experience, not of logical 
 deduction; the history of experience, not the 
 result of philosophy. — That neither death, 
 which is the last great enemy ; — nor life, with 
 all its trials and temptations ;— nor angels, nor 
 
Cu. \II1.J 
 
 KUMARS .S. 
 
 171 
 
 38 For I am persuaded thaf neither death, nor life, 
 nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things 
 present, nor things to couie, 
 
 39 Nor lieight, nor depth, nor any other creature, 
 shall be able to separate us from the love of God, 
 which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. 
 
 q John 10 : 
 
 principalities. Paul believes in the conflict 
 of the spiritual world with this world (Ephea. 6 : 12) ; 
 but they cau uot overconio the power of an in- 
 dwelling and uTiardiui; Christ. — Nor things 
 present, nor things to come. No vicissitude 
 of time or possibilities of eternity. — Nor powers. 
 Hosts, enemies, perhaps a reference to the hosts 
 of evil. — Nor heighth, nor depth« "No 
 dimensions of space cau separate us." — (Meyer.) 
 Coiap. with the whole passage Ps. 139 : 7-1'.^. 
 
 But observe how in this passage the element of 
 fear which shadows the O. T. experience, baa 
 given way in the N. T. to one wholly of joyful 
 trust. — Nor any other created thing. Be- 
 cause they are created ; and God, whose love is 
 Paul's refuge, is the creator and ruler of all. 
 Comp. Isa. 54 : 16, 17. — From the love of God 
 in Christ Jesus our Lord. The love of God 
 manifested to us and made efficacious for our 
 redemption in Christ Jesus his Son and our Lord. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 r A r L • S T II E D I (' Y . 
 
 I SAT the truth in (Christ, I lie not, my conscience bearing witness with iii" in the Holy 
 Ghost, that I have great sorrow and unceasing pain in my heart. For I could 'wish that I my 
 self were anathema from Christ for my brethren's sake, my kinsmen according to the flesh 
 who are Israelites ; whose is 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 is 
 Christ as concerning the flesh, "who is over all, God blessed ^for ever. Amen. But it is not as 
 though the word of God hath come to nought. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel : 
 neither, because they are Abraham's seed, aie they all children : but. In Isaac shall thy seed 
 be called. That is, it is not the children of the flesh that are children of God ; but the children 
 of the promise are reckoned for a seed. For this is a word of promise. According to this 
 season will I come, and Sarah shall have a son. And not only so ; but Rebecca, also having 
 conceived by one, even by our father Isaac — for the children being not yet bom, neither having 
 done anything good or bad, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of 
 works, but of him that calleth, it was said unto her. The elder shall serve the younger. Even 
 as it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated. 
 
 What shall we say then ? Is there unrighteousness with God ? God forbid. For he saith 
 to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I 
 have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God 
 that hath mercy. For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, For this very purpose did I raise thee 
 up, that I might shew in thee my power, and that my name might be published abroad in all the 
 earth. So then he hath mercy on whom he will, and whom he w ill he hardeneth. 
 
 Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he still find fault ? For who withstandeth his will ? 
 Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God ? Shall the thing formed say to him 
 that formed it. Why didst thou make me thus ? Or hath not the potter a right over the clay, 
 from the same lump to make one part a vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour ? What 
 if God, willing t to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much long- 
 suffering vessels of wrath fitted unto destruction : 'and that he might make known the riches 
 of his glory upon vessels of mercy, which he afore prepared unto glory, even us, whom he also 
 called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles f As he saith also in Hosea, 
 
 I will call that my people, which was not my people ; 
 
 And her beloved, which was not beloved. 
 
 And it shall be, that in the place where it was said unto them. Ye are not my people. 
 
 There shall they be called sons of the living God. 
 And Isaiah crieth concerning Israel, If the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of 
 the sea, it is the remnant that shall be saved : for the Lord will execute his word upon the 
 earth, finishing it and cutting it short. And, as Isaiah hath said before, 
 
 Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed. 
 
 We had become as Sodom, and had been made like unto Gomorrah. 
 What shall we say then ? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, at- 
 tained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith : but Israel, following after a 
 law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law. Wherefore ? ^Because they sought it not by 
 faith, but as it were by works. They stiunbled at the stone of stumbUng ; even as it is 
 written. 
 
 Behold, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence : 
 
 And he that believeth on "him shall not be put to shame. 
 
 1 Or, pray. 
 
 2 Some modern in- 
 terpreters place & 
 full stop after 
 fiesh, and trans- 
 late, He who is 
 God over alt be 
 (is) blessed for 
 ever : or, He who 
 is over all is God, 
 blessed for ever. 
 Others punctuate, 
 flesh, who is over . 
 all. God be (.is) 
 blessed for ever.* 
 
 *Por marg. 2 read, 
 Or, flesh : he who 
 is over all, God be 
 blessed for ever. — 
 Am, Com. 
 
 3 Gr, unto the ages. 
 
 t Willing add marg. 
 Or, although will- 
 ing. — Am. Com. 
 
 4 Some ancient 
 authorities omit 
 and. 
 
 5 Or, Because, do- 
 ing it not by faith, 
 but as it were by 
 works, they stum- 
 bled. 
 
 The ninth chapter of Romans is confessedly the most difficult in Paul's writings. The 
 difficulty does not end with the ninth chapter of Romans ; the ninth, tenth, and eleventh 
 are closely connected and constitute one phase of the Epistle. They need to be read 
 together. Without attempting to make these chapters simple, I wish here to call the atten- 
 tion of the student to certain general considerations which may help him in his study. 
 
(11. I.\.| ROMANES. 173 
 
 S[H'fial (lirticiilties <;ro\ving out of cithor iiivululioii of language or enigmatical allusions are 
 consitlered in the notes. 
 
 I. When the language of an author is enigmatical, we niiist always be governed hy the 
 ctinelusion which he finally reaches. However labyrintliiue the path, however it may seem 
 to turn and twine and go back upun itself, it is perfectly clear that no interpretation of his 
 meaning can bo correct which denies the final result as he himself formulates it at the end 
 of his reasoning. No interpreter of Daniel Webster could be in<luced to believe from any 
 language in the construction of his reply to Hayne that he ailvocated the right of States to 
 secede ; no student of Bossuet could, for a moment, feel himself warranted in supposing 
 that this eminent Roman Catholic theologian meant to teach independence of Papal 
 authority, because some utterances in an involved and somewhat enigmatical argument 
 seemed to point in that direction. Now Paul has told us in peifectly explicit and unam- 
 biguous terms what is the conclusion to which he is endeavoring to conduct the readers of 
 this Epistle. He states the conclusion of his argument in tlie clo.se of the eleventh chapter: 
 " God hath," he sjiys, " shut up all unto disobedience that he might have mercy upon all." In 
 this he reiterates the cimclusion which l)y a different process of reasoning he had reached in 
 the fifth chapter : " As through one tre.spass the judgment came unto all men to condem- 
 nation, even so through one act of righteousness </ie /?•«<; gift came M?t<o aWrwew, to justification 
 of life." Whatever interpretation, then, we may give to Paul's argument in this ninth 
 chapter, we can not interpret him as teaching in it that God's grace is limited to an elect 
 number, chosen out of the human race to be the recipients of it ; for so to interpret him is 
 to make him teach in tlie course of his argument something exactly contrary to that to 
 which his argument finally conducts him. The object of the ninth chapter of Romans is 
 to prove the universality of divine grace, that God's free gift is unto all men, that God has 
 mercy upon all. 
 
 II. While in studying this chapter we must be governed by the conclusion which at 
 the end the Apostle reaches, we must also be guided in our interpretation by the condition 
 of mind of the audience which he is addressing. The difficulty of the chapter has been 
 greatly enhanced by reading it in the light of modern discussions between conflicting schools, 
 concerning free will ami divine sovereignty. It has been taken for granted that it contains 
 Paul's teaching respecting foreordination, decrees, election, and reprobation, and it has Ijeen 
 searched to ascertain what his teachings on tho.se subjects are,^ N<nv, when Paul wrote this 
 Epistle no such questions were agitating the primitive Church. The great ecclesiastical and 
 thcologiciil question of the first century was the relation of Jutlaism to Christianity. Was 
 Chri.stianity simply a form of Judai.sm ? a later development] i^o that the believer mu.st 
 become a Jew in order to become a Christian, as he must become a theist in order to becouje 
 a Christian ? This was undoul.)te<lly the view entertained by the twelve Apostles during 
 the life of Christ ; ami it was a prevalent view in the Church after Christ's resurrection. 
 Paul held a very different opinion. He maintained indeed that Christianity was a devel- 
 opment from Judaism ; but that it superseded the system out of which in the fullness of 
 time it Iwul grown. In the ninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters of Romans he is discussing, 
 not election and decrees, but the question whether Christianity is for pagans as well as for 
 Jews, whether the decrees of God .shut the pagan out of the kingdom of heaven, except as 
 they become Jewish proselytes. The whole object of his argument is the development in 
 the Christian of a catholic .spirit ; that is evident from its conclu.sion. The whole occasion 
 for it is that intense narrowness which was characteristic of the Jewish people, and which 
 pervaded all their religious thought as wtdl as all their national life. The Jew had no 
 question as to God's sovereignty. If I may be pardoneil the anachronism, the Jew wa.s a 
 
174 ROMANS. [Ch. IX. 
 
 hyper-Calvinist ; he differed from the Calvinist in this, that the Calvinist holds that the 
 elect are known to God only, while the Jew held that all Jews were elect, and, substantially, 
 all non-Jews were reprobate. The ninth chapter of Romans, addressed to men who were 
 thus rooted and fjrounded in the doctrine of absolute divine sovereignty, attempts not to 
 weaken their faith in tlie kingship of God, but to broaden their conception of God's love ; 
 to show that he has a sovereign right to include pagans as well as Jews in his election, and 
 Jews as well as pagans in his reprobation. It is parallel to, and its teaching is identical 
 with, that of Christ's sermon at Nazareth, reported in Luke 4 : 17-27. The course of argu- 
 ment is substantially the same. Christ appeals to the cases of the widow of Sarepta and 
 Naaman the Syrian, both of whom were pagans, to prove from O. T. history that God 
 included pagans as w^ell as Jews in his provisions of mercy. Paul adopts the same method. 
 You think, he says in effect, that God in his sovereignty has chosen Israel as his elect people 
 and cast all non-Israelites out of his covenanted mercies. Your own history should give 
 you a broader and more catholic conception of God's sovereignty. He chose, not all the 
 children of Abraham, but the children of one wife ; not the first-born of Isaac, but passed 
 him by and took the second-born. The very divine sovereignty which you rest upon as 
 establishing your right to the kingdom of God and the pagan's exclusion from it, establishes 
 the reverse doctrine. It proves that God may choose the pagan and cast Israel out if he 
 will.' Do you object to that ? Why, your prophets tell you that yoii are but clay in his 
 hands. How then can you, who make this doctrine the ground of your haughty exclusion 
 of the pagan, reject it w-hen it is made to appear that for aught you know you may be the 
 outcast, and the pagan the heir of promise ? The figure of the clay in the hands of the 
 potter is not of Paul's origination. It is a Hebrew figure,'' borrowed from the ancient 
 Hebrew prophets, and turned against the narrowness of the Jew.s, w'ho would limit God's 
 mercy by their own race prejudices. 
 
 III. In estimating the meaning of this chapter, we are further to bear in mind, what 
 has too often been ignored in the study of Paul's writings, that moral truths are not like 
 mathematical truths, — absolute and invariable, irrespective of their application. Truth and 
 life are synonymous. Moral truth depends upon the spirit in which it is held, the use which, 
 is made of it, and the direction which is given to it. It is truth not of pure intellect but 
 of spiritual apprehension, and therefore depends upon the spirit in which it is apprehended. 
 A truth of conscience may be held in the spirit of personal vindictiveness, or used for the 
 ends of personal revenge ; and then it is false. A truth of love may be held in a spirit of 
 self-exultation, and used for the purpose of allaying a just apprehension of divine judgment ; 
 then it also is false. What Caiaphas said was true : " It is expedient for us that one man 
 should die for the people, and that the -whcjle nation perish not,"^ and on this truth Christ 
 acted. Yet Caiaphas, in saying it, uttered an untruth. He was false, though his words had 
 truth in them. The action of Christ was the action of truth ; the prophecy of Caiaphas 
 was the prophecy of a lying prophet. A martyr upon the rack says to his tormentor, " You 
 are but an instrument of God ; I am content to suffer." It is true as an expression of sub- 
 mission. The executioner says to the martyr : " I am an instrument of God ; you must be 
 content to suffer." It is false, for it is an expression of overweening self-conceit. 
 
 Now, the truth or falsity of the doctrine of divine sovereignty depends very largely 
 upon the spirit in which it is held, and the direction which is given to it. Paul uses it to 
 break down narrow prejudice ; he utters it in a spirit of a large catholicity ; in his use of it, 
 it is the sovereignty of love. The Jew believed in divine sovereignty, and used his belief 
 
 ' The argument and spirit of John t]ie Baptist is the same in Luke 3 : 8, 9. = Jer. 18 : :i-10. ^ John 11 : 50. 
 
('II. ix.i kuma:n.s. 175 
 
 to t^lrengthen his national pridi- ; (ov In- btliL'Vtd tliat (iod in his sovereignly had rliosi-u 
 all Israelites to be vessels of honor, and all pagans to be vessels of wrath. Paul also believed 
 in divine sovereignty ; but in a very ilitferent spirit ; and he uses the doctrine for a very 
 different end. He believes in the sovereignty which includes all in mercy ; he uses the 
 doctrine to destroy the national pride Avhicli it had been employed to strengthen. The 
 cannon is the .sime cannon, but Paul has captured it from the enemy and turned it against 
 him. The belief that in his sovereignty God has chosen those of like race, belief, or cere- 
 monialism with myself, and cast all others out, and the belief that in liis sovereignty he 
 has taken dowji all such temporal and accidental distinctions, and included all men in the 
 l>rovisions of his mercy, are both beliefs in divine sovereignty ; but they are not the same 
 belief. The church belief has been too often the former ; Paul's belief was the latter. Tlie 
 two are not to be confounded. It is largely because they have been confounded that Paul 
 has lieen so strangely iiiii-uinlersidod. 
 
 IV. There is another cdusideration which I think is to be borne in mind in studying 
 (he ninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters of Romans, though it is one difficult to state clearly 
 and without danger of mis;ii)])rehension. In the.se chapters Paul is arguing against his own 
 prejudices ; he is answering difficulties and objections that arise in his own mind. Here 
 we trace the mental process l)y which the truth of a catholic Christianity dawns upon a 
 nature imbued by birth and education with all the haughty exclusiveness of the Jew. 
 These chapters are, in other words, no less autobiographical than the seventh and eighth ; 
 those trace the steps of Paul's spiritual progress, these the .steps of his intellectual progress. 
 
 We must not forget that Paul was a Jew, and to the day of his death remained a Jew. 
 He was a Pharisee of the Pharisees ; he was educated at the feet of Gamaliel ; he was 
 brought up according to the .straitest sect of the Pharisaic party. When he was converted 
 he desired to preach to the Jews, and nnly a heavenly vision, re-enforced by providentially 
 ])ermitted persecution, changed him from his purpose and made him the apostle to the 
 Gentiles." In this very chapter he gives strong and even paradoxical expression to his 
 intense loyalty to his own people. Such a man does not all at once dismiss the prejudices 
 of his earlier education. If he could do .so there would be little value in education. Early 
 influences cling to him ; baui.-<hed, they return again ; he has to clear his mind by gradual 
 processes from the entanglement and obscuration. So Luther worked his way clear from 
 the monastic traditions in which he had been nurtured ; and John Wesley from the ecclesi- 
 asticism of his earlier years. God habitually selects men who have experience of prejudice, 
 to lead their fellow-men out of it ; the Moses who is to emancipate from Egyptian super- 
 stition is first raise<l in its school. The objection t(t Paul's doctrine of redemption stated in 
 previous chapters, that it promotes indifference to sin, is that of an imaginary objector, and 
 Paul instantly brushes it aside ; indeed, when it first appears, he does not even give it the 
 respect of an answer.'' But the objections in this chapter to the doctrine of a universiil 
 ])rovision of salvation are not fictitious, but real ; the objections that spring up in Paul's 
 own mind. He is soliloquizing ; answering his own difficulties; rea.soning with himself; 
 depicting the process by which he had felt his own way to the truth. Paul the Christian is 
 answering Paul the Jew. The chapter is obscure because it is itself a transcript of the very 
 process by which the obscuration is cleared away ; such proce.sses are always oUscure. But 
 the end is not obscure. " Of him, and through him, and to him are all things; to whom be 
 glory forever. Amen." We see the dawn rising, the darkness fleeing away, the difficulties 
 and (objections vanishing, the light at last clear and bright, the light of a perfect day. 
 
 ' Acts 22 : 17-21 ; 9 : 2f>, 30. » eh. 8 : 7, 8. 
 
176 ROMANS. [Cir. TX. 
 
 These chapters are the path of a just man, emancipating himself from the traditions of his 
 early education ; a path that begins in obscurity, but shineth more ;ind more unto the 
 perfect day.' 
 
 I am aware that to some this view of Paul's epistle will seem inconsistent with any. 
 reverential and sound view of inspiration. It does not seem so to me. We know that there 
 is progress of doctrine in the Bible ; that the truth of God grew gradually into tlie mintl 
 of the human race ; that the revelation of God is clearer in the New Testament than in 
 the Old Testament. We know, too, that in the case of the twelve Apostles the light grad- 
 ually came upon them ; that at first Jesus was to them a prophet ; then the Messiah ; then 
 the Saviour of his own nation ; not until after the resurrection did, they grasp the idea of 
 his divinity ; not till after Pentecost the idea of his spiritual kingdom. We know that the 
 truth that the Gospel was for Gentile as well as Jew was gradually revealed to Peter, and 
 we are permitted in the Acts to trace the process by which it was revealed to him ; tlie op- 
 position it met ; the way in which that oj^position of his Jewish prejudice and training was 
 overcome.^ I see no reason for doubting that the process was similar in the mind of Paul ; 
 that as the truth gradually won its way in the history of the long line of prophets and 
 teachers ; as we see it winning its way in the minds of the twelve Apostles, and particularly 
 of Peter ; so here in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters of Romans we see it winning 
 its way in the mind of Paul ; meeting difficulties which were real to him ; encountering 
 his Pharisaic understanding of the doctrine of divine sovereignty and transforming it into 
 a Christian doctrine ; showing him that the sovereignty of God is itself a sovereignty of 
 mercy ; using against his own prejudices the arguments which they had employed where- 
 with to defend themselves ; and finally winning him over to a doctrine of a catholic and 
 universal Gospel. The story of this process of his own emancipation is here told for the 
 instruction of the church ; not that the church may strengthen itself in prejudice which it 
 here beholds melting away before the light of truth and love, but that it may itself, follow- 
 ing a like path, see al.so its own prejudice melting away, and may itself reach the ^sarne 
 conclusion — God has mercy upon all. 
 
 V. This survey of the difficulties encountered in the niiitli chapter df Romans would 
 be incomplete if it did not take account of one other difficulty, which is perhaps practically 
 the greatest of all : the difficulty afforded by the fact that its teaching is humiliating to the 
 pride of man. It is humiliating to the pride of his intellect ; for it ends in a recognition 
 of mystery in God's government, and intellectual pride is unwilling to admit that there is 
 any thing in God or his dealings which the intellect can not understaml. It is humiliating 
 to the pride of the will ; for it ends in leaving all in God's hands, and the will wants to 
 retain all in its own. To quote the words of an old divine, the ninth chapter makes " God 
 great and man little." He who objects to this must always find a difficulty in the chaj)ter 
 which no explanation can take away. On this subject I can not so well express my own 
 conviction as by quoting the words of my fiither in his commentary, A\Titten years ago, (jii 
 this Epistle : 
 
 "This (ch. 9 : 17, 18) is, perhaps, the most striking of the numerous pas.sages, occurring 
 in the Scriptures, in which it is asserted that the contrfd of Almighty God is absolute and 
 entire over all the moral conduct of his creatures, whether evil or good — a control so abso- 
 lute and entire, that if, in the cour.se of his administration, he deems it expedient to exhibit 
 to the universe a spectacle of sin and its consequences, he can do so, — wliile yet the moral 
 responsibility and ill desert of the sin rests solely with the being who commits it. Such a 
 
 ' Prov. 4 : IS. = Acts 10 ; 11 : IS. 
 
Oh. TX.] ROMANS. 177 
 
 iloctrine awakens very different feelinj^s in different minds. Some repose in (piiet and sub- 
 missive contidenoe under the absolute and boundless moral soverei<^nty with which it invests 
 Jt'hovah. Others find it utterly irreconcilable with what they regard as plain principles of 
 justice, and the very statement of it seems to awaken in their minds feelings of abhorrence 
 and detestation. Many classes of excellent Christians endeavor to soften this doctrine by 
 allowing to the jiower of Jehovah an efficient control over all the rujIU and holy desires and 
 acts of his creatures, while tliey limit and tjualify in various ways his agency in respect to 
 those that are wrong ; for the minds of mankind at large are found to ac(juiesce much more 
 readily in assigning to God a direct agency -in the production of holiness, than in that of 
 sin. It is, however, somewhat doubtful whether the real difficulty is much alleviated, in a 
 philosophical point of view, by this management ; for we can n't easily conceive how one 
 kind of moral conduct or character can be determined by a superior power, consistently 
 with the freedom of the agent, rather than another ; that is to say, if Gfxl can produce 
 penitence in David's heart, which shall yet be wholly David's penitence, and for which 
 David only shall be morally responsible, it is difficult to show any reason why the same 
 kind of moral power, operating reversely, may not produce obduracy in Pharaoh's heart, 
 wliich shall be wholly Pharaoh's obduracy, and for which Pharaoh alone is morally account- 
 aljle. There is a great difference between the two cases, in respect to the readiness with which 
 the mind is willing to admit such a power ; but it would probably not be easy to establish 
 between them any philosophical distinction. The difficulty seems insurmountable to human 
 powers in either case. But, then, we must consider that, whatever difficulties may attend 
 this subject, they seem to be involved in the very idea of a divinity really supreme. And, 
 even if we relinquish the idea of a divinity, and substitute, as in that case we must, the 
 control of steadily-acting laws, mental and corporeal, over the phenomena of matter and 
 mind, — the doctrine of philosophical necessity takes the place of that of the personal 
 sovereignty of Jehovah, and it is, to say the least, quite as intractable in respect to its 
 consistency with human freedom. The difficulties, then, it would seem, can not, on any 
 hypothesis, be either solved or avoided. The result is, that the only way in which the 
 mind can be really at peace on this subject is humbly to acquiesce in our incapacity to 
 fathom this gulf, in theory, and then practically to yield our full and cordial assent, on the 
 one hand, to the dictates of conscience, wliich testify that we are entirely unrestrained in 
 our moral conduct, and so accountable for it, — ami on the other, to the word of God, 
 asserting that Jehovah is sujjrevie, and that his providence includes and controls all ihat 
 takes place under his reign." 
 
178 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 [Cii. IX. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 I SAY the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also 
 bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost 
 
 2 That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow 
 in my heart. 
 
 3 For I " could wish that myself were accursed from 
 
 Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the 
 flesh : 
 
 4 Who are Israelites ; to whom pertaineth the adop- 
 tion,'' and the glory, ■= and the covenants,"' and the giving 
 of the law,"= and the' service o/ God, and the prom- 
 ises •« 
 
 5 Whose are the fathers,*" and of whom,' as concern- 
 ing the flesh, Christ came, who is J over all, God 
 blessed for ever. Amen. 
 
 lEx. 32:32.... bDeut. 7 ; 6 c Ps. 90 : IG ; Isa. 60:19....rt Oen. 17 : 2 ; Deut. 29 : 14 ; Jer. ?\ : ,33....ech. .1:2; Ps. 147 : 19 f Kx. 12 : 
 
 g Eph. 2 ; 12 h ch. U : 28 i Luke- :i : 23, i-tc j Johu 1 . 1. 
 
 Ch. 9 : THE TRUE THEODICY.— Paxtl's patriotism ; 
 A Christian love fob his nation. — The glory of 
 Israel : to them is committed the ministry op 
 God's grace. — The children of God : born not 
 OF BLOOD (verses 7-9). — Nor op the will op the 
 plesh (verses 10-13).— God's will the ultimate 
 pact ; IT is to be accepted, not to be vindicated 
 OR JUSTIFIED.— God is the judge op man: man is 
 
 NOT THE JUDGE OP GoD. — GOD REJECTS SOME OP HIS 
 CHOSEN PEOPLE : HE ACCEPTS SOME WHO ARE NOT HIS 
 CHOSEN PEOPLE.— Who are FIRST IN THE KINGDOM 
 OF GOD : NOT THE FIRST TO SEEK IT, BUT THE FIRST 
 To ACCEPT IT AS A GIFT. — THE FIRST SHALL BE LAST, 
 AND THE LAST FIRST. — ThE ROCK OF STUMBLING TO 
 INTELLECTUAL PRIDE IS THE FOUNDATION OP HOPE IN 
 HUMILITY AND FAITH. 
 
 1-5. I speak the truth in Christ. As a 
 
 Christian ; the language is not that of mere ad- 
 juration. The meaning is, perliaps, that his 
 Christian experience has not separated him from 
 the Jews ; as a Christian he still has a profound 
 sympathy for his owni people. — I lie not, my 
 conscience also bearing nie witness. This 
 strong assertion is rendered necessary because 
 the doctrine of the chapter which follows is that 
 the Jew has no advantage over the Gentile, but 
 both stand on the same footing before God. — In 
 the Holy Ghost. "Much as 'in Christ 'above." — 
 {Alford.) — That I have great grief, etc. "In 
 chapter viii., Paul's enemies marched, conquered 
 and powerless, in stately procession before our 
 eyes. At the sight of them the conqueror burst 
 into a song of triumph and of praise to him who 
 had given the victory. Suddenly the song ceases, 
 and the minstrel, whose lips spoke forth a moment 
 a'zo the exultation of his heart, now tells us that 
 he has great and constant sadness. So unex- 
 pected is this statement, that Paul appeals in 
 proof of it to Christ, whose life and nature he 
 shares, and to the Spirit who directs his words 
 and actions."— (i?(se<.)— This is characteristic of 
 the sudden changes in mood of a nature so intense 
 as Paul's.— For I could wish. The imperfect 
 tense is sometimes employed in the Greek where 
 we should use the subjunctive to express a con- 
 ditional action (see Winer's Greek Grammar, 4Ia, 2a). 
 
 Here: "I was beginning to wish, but the wish 
 was impossible," equivalent to, "I could almost 
 wish." So Alford, Meyer, Winer, Buttman.— 
 Myself accursed from Christ. Literally, 
 
 Anatliema from Christ. Anj' thing consecrated to 
 the gods was termed anathema. As any living 
 thing thus devoted could not be redeemed, but 
 was put to death, anathema came to denote any 
 thing devoted to death or destruction, any thing 
 accursed, or on which a curse is laid, as cities 
 and their inhabitants which are to be destroyed 
 
 (josh. 6:17, 18 ; 7:1; Deut. 7 : 26). — {RobinSOn^ S LeX.) 
 
 The meaning is quite plain ; it is the strong ex- 
 pression of a deep spiritual sympathy for the 
 Israelite which leads the Apostle almost to be 
 willing to be forever cut off from Christ if there- 
 by he could secure their union to Christ. — To 
 whom pertaineth the sonship. Comp. ch. 
 o : 3. The sonship is primarily theirs, and passes 
 from and through them to the Gentile world 
 (see ch. ii). — And the glory. The living Presence 
 of God, historically manifested in the Shechinah. 
 — And the covenants. Making them God's 
 covenant people. See for example Gen. 15 : 9-21 ; 
 17 : 4, 7, 10 ; 26 : 24 ; 28 : 13 ; Exod. 24 : 7, 8.— 
 And the law-giving. The act of giving the 
 law and the law given. — And the service. The 
 ritual of worship ordained through Moses. — 
 And the promises. The O. T. being emphat- 
 ically a book of ])romise, the promises being made 
 to Israel who is thus a nation of promise. — Of 
 whom lire the fathers. Perhaps simply the 
 patriarchs ; perhaps in a larger sense the leaders 
 in the whole national history. — And of whom 
 came the Messiah according to the flesh. 
 He who came forth from God and returned to 
 God again, nevertheless, being bom of a virgin, 
 was, according to the flesh, Jewish by descent. — 
 He Avho is over all. God be blessed for 
 ever. Amen. Three interpretations are possi- 
 ble of the close of this verse. One adopted by 
 both the Old and the New Version, and defended 
 by Alford, makes the sentence a declaration that 
 Christ is God over all blessed forever. Comp. 
 ch. 1 : 4. But nowhere else in the Bible is Ciirist 
 declared to be God over all, but habitually the 
 Son of God, or God manifest in the flesh, or the 
 image of God, and the like. The second inter- 
 pretation, maintained by Meyer, Beek, and others, 
 puts a period at the word "came," and under- 
 stands the rest of the sentence to be a doxology. 
 He who is over all is God blessed forever. The 
 third, originally suggested by Erasmus, puts the 
 
Cli. 1\.] 
 
 KUMA^^S. 
 
 IyU 
 
 6 Not as though the word of God liath taken'' none 
 effect For' they are not all Israel, which are of 
 Israel : 
 
 7 Neitlier, because they are the seed of Abraham, 
 are they all children: but, In "' Isaac shall thy seed be 
 called. 
 
 8 That is. They wliich are tlie children of the flesh, 
 these are not the children ot God : but the children » of 
 tlie promise are counted for Ihe seed. 
 
 9 For this /> tlie word of promise, At" this time will 
 I come, and Sarah shall have a son. 
 
 10 Anil not only this ; but when Rebecca p also had 
 conceived by one, ez'en by our father Isaac ; 
 
 11 iFor the children being not yet born, neither 
 having: di>ne any Rood or evil, that the purpose of God, 
 according to election, might stand, not of works, but 
 of him that calleth ;) 
 
 12 It was said unto her. The elder shall serve the 
 younger. 
 
 13 -As it is written,'' Jacob have I loved, but Esau 
 have I hated. 
 
 14 \\ iim sliall we say then ? /s-' there unrighteous- 
 ness with God ? God forbid. 
 
 15 For he saith to Moses, I" will have mercy on 
 whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion 
 on whom 1 will have compassion. 
 
 16 So then // is not ot him tiiat willcth, nor of him 
 that runneth, but ol God that sliewetli mercy. 
 
 17 l'\)r the scripture saith' unto I'haraoh, Even for 
 this same purpose have I raised thee up, tliat 1 migiit 
 shew my power in ttiee, and that my name migiit be 
 declared throughout all the earth. 
 
 18 Tlierefore hath lie mercy on whom he will hax'e 
 mercy, and whom he will he hardenelh. 
 
 kisa. 55:11....! cb. 2:28,29. 
 
 .p Oen. 25 : 21, 23 q Mai. 1 : 2, S r Dent. 32 : 4 
 
 period after " over all." The remaining words, 
 " God blessed forever," then become a doxology. 
 Either construction is grammatically possible ; 
 the latter seems to me the more natural. Paul, 
 according to this interpretation, says : Of whom 
 as concerning the flesh came Christ who is over 
 all. God be blessed forever. Amen. [This is 
 certainly legitimate. In v>«'lc «t;Ao;i;T'J.', the ad- 
 jective following the substantive implies some 
 form of the verb tin/, and is properly rendered, 
 God he blessed. See " Goodwin's Greek Gram- 
 mar," 14-.3 : 3.] 
 
 G-13. Ill the preceding verses Paul has as- 
 serted that many of the Jews are outcasts from 
 the kingdom of God. He is met at once by the 
 objection that this assumption sets at naught the 
 promises of the O. T., which regard the Jews as 
 God's chosen people. To this he replies by 
 showing historically that not all the race of Israel 
 were God's chosen people ; only the children of 
 Isaac were included in the promise ; and of Isaac 
 only the children of Jacob the second bom. The 
 inheritance then docs not depend uj)on race, it is 
 not a birthright ; but upon promise, a jiroiiiise 
 which may legitimately exclude a part of I;;rael 
 and include a part of non-Israel. Tlie doctrine 
 is identical with that of ch. 2 : 28, 29 ; Luke 3:8; 
 John 1 : 13 ; Gal. 4 : 22-31. The marghial refer- 
 ences will give the reader the passages in the 0. 
 T. referred to by the Apo.>tle. As the promise 
 does not depend ujion birth (virscs -, s), so neither 
 does it depend upon previous good character 
 (versn n-i.!). Eternal life is the gift of God; it 
 rests on the free promise of God ; it is freely be- 
 stowed by him ; it is neither a birthright nor an 
 earned right ; it is not a right at all. It is wholly 
 of grace (Epiies. 2:4.5,8). In this fact Paul de- 
 lights; he reiterates it again and again with an 
 intensity of exiire.-sion characteristic of so intense 
 a nature. This spirit of joyful trust in Ciod in 
 all the mystery of life, which is emphatically the 
 lesson of the book of Job, jiervades all Paul's 
 writinirs ; he revels in the mystery and ai>i)iirciit 
 ci)ntr;idicti<itis of life, because the trrcatcr the 
 
 mystery the more unreserved the trust. To him 
 the solution of life is not a theodicy, but a spirit 
 of repose in a God whose judgments are un- 
 searchable and his ways jiast finding out (eh. 
 11 : s.-,, 34). lie lays emphasis, therefore, on the 
 doctrine of the 0. T., that the pui-pose of God is 
 according; to election, that is, tc^s upon God's 
 sovereign will, of which there is no explanation ; 
 God's choice is the ultimate fact. The phrase, 
 " Jacob have I loved, but Esau huve I hated," is 
 quoted from Mai. 1 : 2, 3, where the phrase is 
 used by tlie prophet in answer to the supercilious 
 question of a supjiosc-d objector to his message. 
 "Wherein has God loved us?" is the question 
 asked ; and the contrast between the treatment 
 of the children of Israel and the children of 
 Esau is the prophet's answer. According to 
 both Henderson and Pusey, to hate is used in a 
 comparative sense, not as signifying absolute ill- 
 will, but a less degree of favor. Meyer and 
 Alford both deny that the word bears this sig- 
 nificance here. The question is not very impor- 
 tant. It is as difficult to understand why (iod 
 should show more favor to one than to another, 
 as why he should love one and hate another. 
 The end of the argument is the same in either 
 case ; an inexplicable mystery, which serves in 
 Paul's exjierience simply to deepen the delight 
 of an unquestioning trust. 
 
 16-18. The instinctive objection of an tin- 
 trusting spirit Paul here puts into language. Is 
 there unrighteou.sncss witli God, who chooses 
 before the child has done either good or evil ? 
 And his answer is characteristic. It is not intel- 
 lectual, but sjjiritual. Paul does not even 
 attempt to show that the reiisons for this choice 
 can be understood, and the election of God vin* 
 dicatgd by human reason ; he simply reiterates 
 the truth th;it God does choose as lie pleases, 
 without giving account to us, and c:ills on Jewish 
 lii-tory for a still more striking illusiratioti of 
 the fact. In the case of ,T;ic(d) ;iii(l Esau, one is 
 chosen and the other left ; in the case of Moses 
 an I I'liaraoh, both arc clioscii ; one lo be a niani- 
 
180 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 [Ch. JX. 
 
 19 Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet 
 find fault ? for who " hath resisted his will ? 
 
 20 Nay but, O man. who art thou that repliest 
 against God ? Shall " the thing formed say to him that 
 fo.med /V, Why hast thou made me thus ? 
 
 u 2 Chron. 20 : 6 ; Dan. 4 : 35. 
 
 21 Hath not the potter" power over the day, of the 
 same lump to make one vessel unto honour and an- 
 other unto dishonour ? 
 
 22 ii-'haf- if God, willing to shew /;/> wrath, and to 
 make his power known, endured with much longsuf- 
 fering the vessels 1 of wrath fitted to destruction : 
 
 .w Isa. 64 : 8. 
 
 . y 2 Tim. 2 : 20. 
 
 festation of the divine compassion and mercy, 
 the other of the divine power and judgment. 
 The two together illustrate the two phases of the 
 declaration in Ps. 103 : 6, 8 : " The Lord executeth 
 righteousness and judgment for all that are op- 
 pressed. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow 
 to anger and plenteous in mercy." In this case, 
 too, Paul finds no reason for God's action which 
 he can comprehend ; he does not even look for 
 one. He rests joyfullj' on the mere fact that 
 whatever God wills is right. Much has been 
 written concerning the hardening of Pharaoh's 
 heart (verse 18) ; and it is certain that the notion 
 that God by his Spirit makes the heart obdurate 
 to the hiiiher iijjOtives, is not only grossly incon- 
 sistent with nny conception of divine holiness 
 and justice, but also flatly contradicts the direct 
 and explicit declaration of Scripture (james i : \?). 
 The carefid reader of the stoi^ of Pharaoh will, 
 however, observe that there is nowhere in tliat 
 account the slightest indication of any yielding 
 ou Pharoah's part to moral considerations ; no 
 evidence that conscience, or reverence, or a sense 
 of obligation either to God or man was once 
 awakened in him. He was several times fright- 
 ened ; and under the influence of his fear pre- 
 pared to let Israel go, and then when the imme- 
 diate danger had i)assed, drew back, disregarded 
 his promise, and resumed his old course. It is 
 not at all inconsistent with divine justice and 
 holiness to believe that God, by the course of his 
 providence, or by the influence of counselors 
 who surrounded him, or by direct influence, 
 strengthened him against this motive of mere 
 fear, which had no moral quality in it. Pharaoh 
 would have been no better for letting Israel go 
 because he was frightened than for i-efusing to 
 let them go because he was not. We can at least 
 dimly see that the moral ends in the world's his- 
 tory were far more effectually accomplished by 
 having the battle fought out to the end, than by 
 havintr Pharaoh capitulate to a mere sentiment 
 of selfish fear. At all events, there is nothing in 
 the O. T. narrative, nor in Paul's language here, 
 which implies that God hardened Pharaoh's heart 
 against any inclination toward justice and right- 
 eousness, for there is no indication that Pharaoh 
 had at any time any such inclination. 
 
 19-23. The ol)jection in verse I'.t is a repeti- 
 tion in a different form of that in verse 14. The 
 entire chapter is misinterpreted if we understand 
 it as Paul's attempt to vindicate God. It is a 
 
 dialogue between inteUeetualism and trust ; be- 
 tween the spirit which demands that God shall 
 give an account of himself to man, and the 
 spirit which declares that man has neither the 
 right nor the ability to sit in judgment on God ; 
 that we are to assume that he acts always 
 according to principles of justice, and in the 
 mysteries of life are to trust wholly in the right- 
 eousness of his will, as the ultimate explanation 
 of the phenomena of existence. How, says the 
 intellect, can you reconcile the apparent injustice 
 of life with belief in a just God '? I can not, 
 replies faith, and I do not attempt to. I only 
 know that God is God, and whatever he wills is 
 right ; in that I rest and am at peace. Paul is 
 the prophet of faith, not of any system of intel- 
 lectualism. The chapter is involved in hopeless 
 confusion by attempting to get a philosophy of 
 life out of a writer who rejoices in showing that 
 life defies all attempts of philosophical interpre- 
 tation, and that rest can be found only in child- 
 like faith in a God whose ways are past finding 
 out. The figure of the clay and the potter is 
 
 borrowed from the O. T (Uaiah 29 : le ; 64 : 8 ; Jer. 
 
 18 : 3-10). Verses 22-24 are Paul's application of 
 the figure. In this application he makes no 
 attempt at a comprehensive or even self-consistent 
 philosophy. Having treated men as clay in the 
 hands of the potter, i. e., as though thej- were 
 wholly passive in the hands of a divine Sovereign, 
 in the next sentence he treats them as moral 
 agents, whom God bears with in much long-suf- 
 fering. He weaves his thought of life of the two 
 strands, — absolute sovereignty and individual 
 free-will and accountability, — without any at- 
 temjit to reconcile the two. His spirit is exactly 
 analogous to that of Peter in Acts 2 : 23 : " Him 
 being delivered by the determinate counsel and 
 foreknowledge of God, ye have taken and by 
 wicked hands have crucified and slain." God 
 willi/ig is rather God purposing ; not merely his 
 consent, but his deliberate purpose is implied. 
 To sliowfortJt Ms wrath is, not merely to make an 
 exhibition of wrath, but in making himself known 
 to man, to show by an historical manifestation 
 the nature of his wrath, as the wrath of holiness 
 and love. It is, and throughout O. T. history is 
 seen to be, the wrath of the Lamb (Rev. e : le) ; 
 i. e., the same spirit which endured self-sacrifice 
 for love's sake is indignant with the indignation 
 of love. See, as illustration of this, Ex. 3 : 16-20, 
 where the wrath on Egypt is clearly the wrath 
 
('II. IX. J 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 181 
 
 23 .\nd that he inifjht make known the riches ' of his 
 glory orf the vessels ot mercy, which • he had albre 
 prepared unto glory, 
 
 24 Kven us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews 
 only, but also ol the Cicnti'.os ? 
 
 25 As he saith also in Osee,'' 1 will call them my 
 people, which were not my people : and her beloved, 
 which was not beloved. 
 
 26 And "^ it shall come to pass, that in the place where 
 it was said unto them. Ye are not my people ; there 
 shall they be called the chililren of the living God. 
 
 27 Esaias also*" crietli concerning Israel, Though the 
 number of the children of Israel be as the sand ol the 
 sea. a remnant shall be saved : 
 
 28 For he will tinish the work, and cut it short in 
 righteousness : because ' a short v.-ork will the Lord 
 make upon the earth. 
 
 2g And as Ksaias said before,'' Except the Lord of 
 Sabaoth had left us a seed, we« had been as Sodoma, 
 and been made like unto (lomorrha. 
 
 30 What shall we say then? That'' the Gentiles, 
 which followed not after righteousness, have attained 
 to righteousness, even the righteousness ' which is of 
 faith. 
 
 31 But Israel, which J followed after the law of right- 
 eousness, hath not attained to the law of righteous- 
 ness. 
 
 32 Wherefore? ^ec^ws^ they sought it not by faith, 
 but as it were by the works of the law. For they 
 stumbled at that stuinblingstone : 
 
 33 As it is written,'' Uehohl. 1 lay in Sion a stumbling- 
 stone and rock of offence : and whosoever bclieveth on 
 him shall not be ashamed. 
 
 X Eph. I : 18 al Thess. 5 : 9 b Hos. 2 :23....c Hos. 1 : 10 d Isa. 10 : 22, 23... .e Tsa. 28:22 flsa. 1:9: Lam. 3:22....g Gen. 
 
 19:24, 25; Isa. 13 : 19 h ch. 10: SO i ch. 1 : 17 ; Phil. 3 : 9....J ch. 10 : 2; 11 : 7 k Pa. IIS: 22; Isa. 8: U. 
 
 of love for the people whom Efrypt had long 
 oppressed. Observe that the Apostle says of the 
 vessels of wrath, that they are fitted for destritc- 
 tio?i, leavinsr the reader to think of them as fitted 
 in the purpose of God, or as self-titted ; but of 
 the vessels of mercy that God hath before pre- 
 pared them for glory ; there Is no room here for 
 any sugi;estion that they are self-prepared. The 
 difference is not accidental ; it is habitual in the 
 inspired writers. The question of the objector 
 the Apostle does not answer. His response to 
 the complaint of intcllectualism, "Why doth he 
 yet find fault : for who liath resisted his will?" 
 is si>iritual, not intellectual. lie ;niswcrs ques- 
 tion with question, arrests attention, throws the 
 skeptic back upon himself, leaves him to ponder 
 the question and work out his own replj'. Meyer 
 thus gives its significance: "But how if God, 
 although indeed to manifest his wrath and to 
 make known his power, has endured with much 
 long-suffering vessels of wrath, which are never- 
 theless adjusted to destruction ; in order also to 
 make known the riches of his glory on vessels of 
 mercy, which he has pre[)ared beforehand for 
 glory?" 
 
 2 1-29. These verses make clear and emphatic, 
 by quotation from the O. T. prophets, what is 
 the en<l of the Apostle's thought in this chapter, 
 namely, that God may both include Gentiles and 
 exclude Israel from the promise ; that the Israelite 
 can claim nothing by right either of birth or of 
 deeds ; that the Gentile need fear nothing, be- 
 cause he is not in the line of descent from Abra- 
 ham. At the same time, V)y going to the O. T. 
 for his quotation, he makes it clear that he is not 
 preaching a new doctrine, but is simply reaffirm- 
 
 ing the teaching of the Hebrew prophets. For 
 the passages cited, see marginal reference. The 
 citation from Hosea makes it clear that Gentiles 
 are included in the promise of the O. T.; the 
 citation from Isaiah that all Israel are not in- 
 cluded. The moral effect of the teaching is the 
 humility and godly fear in the Jew, and an en- 
 kindled aspiration and a godly hope in the Gen- 
 tOe. 
 
 30-33. These verses give the conclusion of 
 the Apostle's argument, which is repeated at the 
 close of the eleventh chapter. The Gentiles have 
 not striven after righteousness ; the Jews have ; 
 and yi't the Jews have not attained to it any 
 earlier than the Gentiles. ( Hath not attained, in 
 verse ol, is literally hath not anticipated or ar- 
 rived beforehand at the law of righteousness.) For 
 the Gentiles in their de|>endence have been ready 
 to accept righteousness as a free gift through 
 faith ; while the Jews, in their pride of race, havt; 
 believed they were able to work it out for them- 
 selves by the works of the law. The reference 
 to the stone of stumbling is not a verbatim quo- 
 tation, but a conibinaiion of Isaiah 8 : 14 : "He 
 shall be for a stone of stumbling," and Isaiali 
 28 : 16; "Behold, I lay in Zioii for a foundation a 
 stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone, a 
 sure foundation : he that bclieveth shall not make 
 haste," i. e., shall never need to take themselves 
 with speed to some other refuge. Comp. also 
 Ps. 118 : 22. The same Messiah is a stumbling- 
 stone and rock of offense to those who are deter- 
 mined to work out their righteousness by their 
 own works, and a sure f(^uiidation for a peaceful 
 faith for those who are willing to receive it by 
 faith as a free gift of God. 
 
1 Gr. good pleasttre. 
 
 2 Or, that. 
 
 3 Some ancient au- 
 thorities read 
 confess the word 
 with thy mouth, 
 that Jesus is 
 Lord. 
 
 4 Or, a gospel. 
 
 5 Or, goBpeh 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 PAUL'S MISSIONARY ARGUMENT. 
 
 Brethren, my heart's 'desire and my supplication to God is for them, that they may be 
 saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. 
 For being ignorant of God's righteousness, and seeking to establish their own, they did not 
 subject themselves to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law unto right- 
 eousness to every one that believeth. For Moses writeth that the man that doeth the righteous- 
 ness which is of the law shall live thereby. But the righteousness which is of faith saith thus. 
 Say not in thy heart. Who shall ascend into heaven f (that is, to bring Christ down :) or, Who 
 shall descend into the abyss ? (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead. ) But what saith it ? 
 The word is nigh thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart : that is, the word of faith, which we 
 preach : ^because if thou shalt ^'confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shall believe in thy 
 heart that God raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved : for with the heart man believeth 
 unto righteousness ; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture 
 saith. Whosoever believeth on him shall not be put to shame. For there is no distinction be- 
 tween Jew and Greek : for the same Lcn^d is Lord of all, and is rich unto all that call upon him : 
 for. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call 
 on him in whom they have not believed ? and how shall they believe in him whom they have not 
 heard ? and how shall they hear without a preacher ? and how shall they preach, except they 
 be sent ? even as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that bring ^glad tidings of 
 good things I 
 
 But they did not all hearken to the =glad tidings. For Isaiah saith, Lord, who hath believed 
 our report ? So belief cmneth of hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. But I say, Did 
 they not hear f Yea, verily. 
 
 Their sound went out into all the earth, 
 
 And their words unto the ends of "the world. 
 But I say, Did Israel not know ? First Moses saith, 
 
 I will provoke you to jealousy with that which is no nation, 
 
 With a nation void of understanding will I anger you. 
 And Isaiah is very bold, and saith, 
 
 I was found of them that sought me not ; 
 
 I became manifest unto them that asked not of me. 
 But as to Israel he saith. All the day long did I spread out my hands unto a disobedient and 
 gainsaying people. 
 
 At the hazard of seeming to be guilty of needless repetition, I venture to again remind 
 the student that, in order to understand Paul, it is indispensable that he recall the time in 
 which, the conditions under which, and the audience to which Paul spoke. The Christian 
 religion is, in its very birth and by its very nature, a missionary religion. Christ came to 
 seek and to save that which is lost. Departing from the world, he left this mission to his 
 follower.9. Every disciple is a teacher. Every light receiver is a light giver. The torch is 
 lighted only that it may give light. Whosoever enters in by the door becomes thereby a 
 shepherd of the sheep.' This is ingrained into at least our theoretical comprehension of 
 Christianity. However derelict we may be in fulfilling the Christian duty of mi.ssion.s, we 
 all recognize theoretically that the Christian religion is aggressive, forth-putting, missionary ; 
 having for its aim nothing less than the conversion of the world. 
 
 But this was not equally true of the Jewish religion, and was not by the Pharisaic 
 party believed to be true of it at all. Judaism was not a propagating but a self-protecting 
 religion. It did not aim to make converts ; it aimed simply to hedge about those who pos- 
 
 John 10 : 2. See note there. 
 
(11. X.J KOMANS. IS.j 
 
 sessed it, with siicli ^uanis jind jirott'ctiun.-, ;is would pivvcnl thum iVtiiii \>r[iv^ Kd awa\ IVniu 
 it into apostasy and idolatry. Tlii' ivlation lK'tw('i.'n Judaism and Christianity may bi; com- 
 pared to the rehition between the Christian cliihl and the Christian man. The first duty of 
 the chiM is to avoid evil companions ; pre-eminently tin- lir>t <luty of the parent is to guard 
 the child against evil companions. In the adolescent period, ])rotection of character is the 
 first and most sacred obligation. But after truth is measurably learned, after convictions 
 are formed, and character is hardened, and the armor of God is i)ut f)n, the duty changes ; 
 the man begins to take on the missionary duty, to welcome evil companions, even to seek 
 them out. He follows his i\Iaster ; he receives sinners and eats with them. Similarly, 
 while as yet the monotheism of the Jewish people was but a half-formed opinion, and their 
 recognition of a spiritual God but an ill-ilefined sentiment, wliile they were liable to be 
 turned aside to the polytheism and nature- worsliip of surrounding nations, isolation and 
 self-protection were the first necessity of their national life. Not until the adolescent faith 
 that God is one, not niany, and is imaged by man, not by nature, had become an hereditary 
 habit of mind, an invincible conviction, was Israel ready to become a missionary nation. 
 Then the fullness of time had come. Then, and not till then, was Israel prepared to receive 
 the commission whicli had been dimly foreshadowed from the beginning, and become the 
 bearer to other peoples of the glad tidings which she had received herself. But though now 
 equipped for this service, she did not know it. The habit of seclusion and exclusion was 
 fastened upon her. It must be broken. She must learn that the truth which it had taken 
 her so many years to acquire, she held in trust for the world ; that it was a world-truth for 
 all people ; and she the bearer of it to the darkened nations. This, which is alphabetic to 
 us, was strange doctrine to the Jews in the first century. If we do not appreciate this, we 
 shall misread Paul's arg^ument. For either he will seem to us to be elaborately arguing a 
 truism, or, misapplying his argument to questions of to-day, which were not questions in 
 his time, we shall, in misapplying his argument, also misread it. 
 
 The argument of Paul has been directed against this hereditary exclusiveness of the 
 Jews. He has shown that self-condemnation is a universal experience, equally characteristic 
 of Jew and Gentile (chs. I. and III.) ; that sin and struggle are universal facts, belonging to 
 humanity, not to the Jews only (chs. V. and VII.) ; that the consequences of divine judgment 
 are the same for all peoples, and the process of disciplinary sorrow working out redemption 
 is as wide as creation (ch. VIII.) ; he has argued that the Old Testament doctrine of election 
 and divine sovereignty does not militate against the doctrine that God's grace is for all men 
 of every race, clime, tongue, epoch (ch. IX.) ; and he now presses home as a corollary 
 from this argumentj the doctrine that the Jews, so far from standing in the way of the 
 acceptance of the Gentiles, should become themselves ministers to the Gentiles. The argu- 
 ment of the chapter is simple and easy to be understood. The oidy difficulties in it are 
 those incidental to the style of one arguing, as the Apostle is here doing, at white heat, and 
 with the almost headlong haste of one who is too eager in the utterance of the truth which 
 burdens him, to stop and pick his words, or even to carefully arrange his ideas. That argu- 
 ment we may summarize as follows : 
 
 Eighteou.sness, as we have .seen, comes of faith. It is not a product of obedience to 
 some external law ; it is not, therefore, confined to those who are living under a revealed 
 law. It is the product of faith ; it is sown in the heart which receives God, the God who 
 has been. manifested to us by his written revelation. Our 01<1 Testament Scriptures make 
 this clear. They tell us that whosoever .shall call on the name of the Lord shall be siived. 
 That name, then, must be revealed to those that know it not, by those who do know it. 
 Tliis argumi-nt our Old Testament Scriptures recognize. The blessedness of this message- 
 
184 ROMANS. [Ch. X. 
 
 bearing they themselves declare. " How beautiful are the feet of them that bring glad 
 tidings of good things." Faith comes by hearing, receiving, believing. Not all have 
 received : for Isaiah sadly asks, "Who (of Israel) hath believed our report?" Yet all have 
 heard ; for the Psalmist declared of the ministry of nature : " Their sound went out into 
 all the earth and their words unto the ends of the world." So then they of Israel who do 
 not heed the spoken revelation are not children of faith ; and they among the Gentiles who 
 do heed the nature-message are the children of faith. Is this new doctrine 1 one not knoM^n 
 of old to Israel ] Not at all. For the Old Testament prophets have made it clear that 
 Judaism should be a light to lighten the Gentiles. Moses intimates it ; Isaiah declares it 
 explicitly. The doctrine that the Gospel is for humanity, and that Israel is to be the 
 bearer of that message to all humanity, is the doctrine of Moses and the prophets. 
 
 If this is a correct reading of this chapter, it does not teach that no one can be saved 
 unless he knows what we call the Gospel ; that is, the history of the incarnate life and 
 passion of Jesus Christ. Paul's citation of the passage, " Their sound went out into all the 
 earth," ought to be sufficient to prevent any such narrow construction.' The reverse is 
 rather implied. The broad truth is that God's salvation is freely offered to all who are 
 willing to accept it ; that salvation comes not by obedience to any specific enactment, but by 
 the reception of and obedience to God. And the necessary deduction is that any one who 
 has any knowledge of God is imder a sacred obligation to communicate that knowledge to 
 his neighbor ; and he who has a clearer knowledge to him whose knowledge is less clear. 
 Upon this divine obligation of love Paul places the claim of Christian missions upon the 
 hearts of Cliristian believers. Not on the wholly untenable, and truly unthinkable ground, 
 that God has shut up great masses of mankind to eternal death, except as the few privileged 
 ones bestir themselves to open the door of escape, and so has made the eternal destiny of 
 the many to depend absolutely and finally upon the fidelity to duty of the few. 
 
 • Though this reference is, as it seems to me, cuiiuusly misread by the commentators generally, and its sig- 
 nificance darliened if not destroyed. See note on vei-. IS. 
 
Ch. X.J 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 185 
 
 2 V 
 
 Go.l, 
 
 3 V 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 KTIIREN, my heart's desire and prayer to God 
 
 for Israel is. that thev might be saved. 
 
 or 1 bear them record, that thev have a zeal • of 
 
 but not according to knowledge. 
 
 or they being ignorant'' ol God's righteousness, 
 
 J- 
 
 and going about to establish their own righteousness, 
 have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness 
 of (iod. 
 
 4 For Christ ts Wie end '' of the law for righteousness 
 to every one that believeth. 
 
 5 For Moses describeth '' the righteousness which is 
 of the law. That the man which doeth those things 
 shall live by them. 
 
 a ch. 9 i SI ; Acts 21 : SO. . . . b ch. 9 : 30. . . . o Ht-b. 10 : 14. 
 
 Ch. 10 : VWVS MISSIONARY ARfiUMKNT. — Thk 
 Christian's heart'.* delight and heart's desire. 
 —Zeal without knowledge illustrated.— Rest- 
 less SEEKING ; quiet RECErVINO. — ThE AIM OF THE 
 
 LAW. — The law a school-master to lead us to 
 Christ — Righteousness by faith described.— The 
 
 KINGDOM of heaven IS WITHIN YOU.— ThK CONDITION 
 OF SALVATION I FAITH IN THE HEART, WITNESSED BY 
 THE LIFE.— The universal NEED : THE UNIVERSAL 
 
 Gospel.- A chain without a break: believing re- 
 quires HEARING ; hearing PREACHING ; PREACHING 
 
 SENDING.— Missionary intimations in the O. T.— 
 The Jew may hear and not believe ; the Gentile 
 
 MAY believe though HE HAS NOT HEARD. 
 
 1-1. Brethren. Language of afEection ad- 
 dressed primarily to the Jews. The word makes 
 a transition from the language of condemnation 
 of the preceding chapter to one of mitigated 
 severity and deep love ; like that of a parent who 
 chides a child, and then, as if fearing the evil 
 effect of excessive severity, adds words of love 
 and recognition of modifying considerations. 
 " There was something that thi.' Jew had, though 
 not the righteousness of faith. He was not a 
 sinner of the Gentiles. lie had a zeal for God, 
 he had the mark of distinction which it lias been 
 said made Jacob to be preferred to Esau ; ' he 
 was a religious man.'" — (Jowett.) — My heart's 
 delight and prayer to God is for them that 
 they might be saved. " E,'d',xlu (rendered 
 desi)-e) is seldom if ever used to signify the motion 
 of desire, but imports tlie rest of approved na/is- 
 faction.'" — {Aford.) The meaning is that the 
 burden of his prayer is for Israel's salvation, as 
 that salvation would be his heart's delight. — For 
 I bear witness for them, lie bears this wit- 
 ness to the Gentiles, who are also continually in 
 the Apostle's mind, his letter being addressed to 
 a church composed of both Jews and Gentiles. — 
 That they have a zeal for God. A heat, an 
 entliusiasin ; literally, a boiling. — But not ac- 
 cording to knowledge. As explained by what 
 follows; they do not understand the nature of 
 nor the way to that righteousness which is alone 
 well pleasing to God. — For being ignorant of 
 (iod's righteousness. Not the way of justifi- 
 lication appointed by God, but the rigliteousness 
 wliich belocgs to, proceeds from, unites with, 
 and is therelbre acceptable to God. The meaning 
 is made sufliciently clear by the contrast afforded 
 by the next clause. — And seeking to estab- 
 
 lish their own righteousness. Every word 
 is significant. The process of Pharisaism is one 
 of perpetual endeavor, never accomplishing its 
 end ; it is a knocking wliich never enters in, a 
 seeking which never finds. The righteousness 
 is never established ; the soul is never at rest. 
 Their own righteousness is a righteousness which 
 comes from themselves, their own acts, as dis- 
 tinct from the righteousness which is the gift of 
 God. — Were not subject to the righteous- 
 ness of God. The language implies a certain 
 passivitj' ; at least a receptive and obedient tem- 
 per of mind which accompanies faith in God, as 
 opposed to the eager, zealous, restless temper of 
 mind which accompanies trust in one's self. — For 
 C:hrist is the end of the law. " The object 
 at which the law is aimed" (i Tim. 3:5). — (Aford.) 
 Comp. Gal. 3 : 24. The object of the law was 
 historically to prejiare for the coming of the 
 Messiah ; it is ethically, and in each individual, 
 to prepare for the entrance of Christ into the 
 individual heart, that the individual may be con- 
 formed to the same image. — For righteous- 
 ness. As Christ is the end of the law, so a 
 Christ-like character in each believer is the end 
 of Christ's redemptive work. What the law 
 could not do because it was weak through the 
 flesh, Christ does (<-h. 8 : a, 4). — To every one 
 that exercises faith. Receives the spirit of 
 Christ by faith as a transforming power in his 
 own life. Beware of imagining that " believeth " 
 means entertaining some intellectual opinion 
 about Christ or the plan of salvation. The 
 meaning is well interpreted by L'ount Tolstoi, 
 " Life " in Count Tolstoi, and " Righteousness " 
 in Paul being synonymous. "The Gospel is the 
 announcement that the source of all is not an 
 external God, as some think, but the Spirit of 
 Life. Without it there is no life ( righteousness) ; 
 all men are alive (righteous) only through it; 
 and those who do not understand this, but sup- 
 l)ose the flesh to be the foundation of life 1 right- 
 eousness), deprive themselves of the true life 
 (righteousness) ; whereas, those who understand 
 that they are alive (righteous), not through the 
 flesh, but through the 8i)irit, have the true life 
 (righteousness), that has been shown by Jesus 
 Christ." (^f;/ (hrifes-sion, p. 16.5.) 
 
 5-8. In this passage Paul cites, to illustrate 
 the contrast between the righteousness which is 
 
186 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 [Ch. X. 
 
 6 But the righteousness which is of faith speakethon 
 this wise, Saj' ' not in thine heart, Wtio shall ascend 
 into heaven ? (that is, to bring Christ down from 
 above :) 
 
 7 Or, Who shall descend into the deep ? (that is, to 
 bring up Christ again from the dead.) 
 
 8 Hut what saith it ? The word is nigh thee. C7'en in 
 thy mouth, and in thy heart : that is, the word of faith, 
 ■which we preach ; 
 
 9 That if thou shall confess with thy mouth the Lord 
 
 Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart ' that God hath 
 raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. 
 
 10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteous- 
 ness ; and with the mouth confession is made unto sal- 
 vation. 
 
 11 For the scripture saith,'' Whosoever believeth on 
 him shall not be ashamed. 
 
 12 For' there is no difference between the Jew and 
 the Greek: for J the same Lord over all is rich unto all 
 that call upon him. 
 
 e Deut. 30: 12-U f 1 John 4: 2....g Acts 8 :37....h Isa. 28: 16; 49: 23 i Acts 15 : 9 ; Gal. 3 : 28 j 1 Tim. 2 : 5. 
 
 of the law and the righteousness which is of 
 faith, two passages in the writings of Moses ; the 
 first from Lev. 18 : 3-.5, the second from Deut. 
 oO : 11-14. A comparison of these two passages 
 will make it very clear that the righteousness of 
 the law and the righteousness of faith are not 
 two inconsistent and mutuallj- exclusive methods ; 
 one human and false, the other divine and true. 
 Both of them Paul finds illustrated in the law of 
 God and the writings of one of the greatest of 
 the prophets. The first prepares for the second. 
 Obedience to the moral code, ethical righteous- 
 ness, is an essential condition of receiving the 
 higher spiritual life, the righteousness of faith. 
 In Leviticus, Moses tells the children of Israel 
 that they must not carry with them the immoral 
 practices of Egypt, nor conform to the immoral 
 practices of the Canaanites ; and he illustrates 
 this by a series of prohibitions of gross sensual 
 practices common among the heathen. In Deuter- 
 onomy he sets forth the higher law of spiritual 
 life, of love toward, consecration to, union with 
 God, and tells them that for this mystery of 
 godliness they need not search the heavens or go 
 across the sea ; they have but to look into their 
 own heart, and find there the God who wUl give 
 this spiritual righteousness to them. In Ps. 24 
 the same principle is set forth. "He that hath 
 clean hands and a pure heart ; who hath not 
 lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceit- 
 fully ; he shall receive the blessing from the 
 Lord, and righteousness from the God of his 
 salvation." The same ]irinciple is implied in 
 Matt. 7 : 7-14, where, after declaring that everj- 
 one that asketh receiveth — the doctrine of right- 
 eousness by faith — Christ adds the Golden Rule 
 and the reqairement, '• Enter ye in at the straight 
 gate." In brief, faith is impossible without 
 repentance ; receiving righteousness by faith 
 comes only by and with obedience to conscience. 
 There has been some difficulty in explaining the 
 variation between the Apostle's quotation and 
 the original in Deuteronomy. The simplest and 
 most natural explanation is the most probable ; 
 that the Apostle, in the heat of extemporary 
 dictation, did not stop to look up the passage, 
 but quoted from memory. He was careless as 
 to phraseology ; and the meaning of the original 
 and of his quotation is the same : Do not think 
 
 to do some extraordinary thing to please God ; 
 or to make some extraordinary search, as by 
 ascending into heaven or going into hades, for 
 your redemption ; your Redeemer is nigh ; he is 
 to be found in your heart, and in its natural and 
 simplest expression. 
 
 9-13. If thou shalt confess with thy 
 mouth * * * and believe in thine heart. 
 These are not put as different and inconsistent 
 conditions, but as different aspects of one and 
 the same condition, for out of the abundance of 
 the heart the mouth speaketh. One might be- 
 lieve with the head and not confess ; but if this 
 belief is a belief of the heart, if it controls the 
 motive powers and ?o orders the life, it will find 
 expression in the life. The mouth here stands 
 for the whole expression of the life, whether by 
 word or deed ; being the most natural organ and 
 symbol of expression of the life within. Observe 
 that the resurrection, not the incarnation, is put 
 forth by the Apostle as the object of faith. This 
 may be partly because the resurrection as the 
 culmination of the life, and the grandest and 
 most crowning miracle, carries with it all the 
 rest ; but it is also certainly partly because, his- 
 torically, the Apostle bases faith in Christianity, 
 as a divine power unto salvation, upon the res- 
 urrection (Acts l.". : 33, 34; 17 : 31 ; 1 Cor. 15 : V,)\ and 
 
 partly because, spiritually, he bases the redemp- 
 tion of the individual upon faith in a risen and 
 living Christ working in the hearts and lives of 
 those that receive him (ch. 5 : lO; 6:4, 5). — With 
 the heart faith is exerci.sed unto salva- 
 tion, and with the mouth confession is 
 made unto salvation. According to some 
 commentators a distinction is intended by this 
 antithesis ; faith being the condition of personal 
 righteousness, but confession the condition of 
 ultimate and perfect sah'ation ; in other words, 
 faith is necessary to inward justification, and con- 
 fession to outward^ membership in the church. 
 Jowett's interpretation seems to me the more 
 natural one : "It is better to acknowledge that 
 the antithesis is one of style, as at 4 : 25." As 
 the mouth is the symljol of all expression of the 
 inward life, so the heart stands for the whole 
 inner man, especially the motive powers and the 
 will. — Whosoever believeth * * * who- 
 soever shall call. The citations are from 
 
C'li. x. 
 
 RUMAKS. 
 
 187 
 
 13 For' whosoever shall call' upon the name of the 
 Lord shall be saved. 
 
 14 How then shall they call on him in whom they 
 have not believed ? and how shall they believe in him 
 of whom they liave not heard? and how shall they 
 hear without a preaclier ? 
 
 15 Ami how shall they preach, except they be sent ? 
 as it is written.'" How beautiful are the feet of them 
 that i)reach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings 
 of good things ! 
 
 16 But they " have not all obeyed the g<jspel. For 
 F^saias saith," Lord, who hath believed our report ? 
 
 17 So then faith coineth by hearing, and hearing by 
 the word ol (lod. 
 
 18 Hut I say. Have they not hoard? Ves, vtrily, 
 their 1' sound went into all the earth, and their worcis 
 unto the ends of tlie world. 
 
 19 Hut I say, Did not Israel know ? First Moses 
 saith,t I will provoke you to jealousy by them that 
 are no people, and by a foolish nation ' I will anger 
 
 k Joel 2:S2....1 1 Cor. 1 :•.>.... 
 
 •l:': N'»li. !:!.'> n Acts 28 : 24 ; Ilcb. 4 : 2 o Isa. 53 : 1 ; John 12 : 38..,. p Pa. 19 : 4; Matt. 
 
 28 : 19 ; Col. 1 : 6, 23 q Deut. 32 : 21 r Tit. 3 : 3. 
 
 Isaiah '28 : 1(5, and Joel 2 : 32 ; the object of the 
 Apostle is to enforce again, bj- citation fromO. T. 
 prophets, the universality of the grace of God, 
 and its free offer to all men on the same condi- 
 tions. Observe that condition is, not an under- 
 standing of the truth about God, but a calling 
 upon God; the first would depend upon a meas- 
 ure of correct information, the latter is depend- 
 ent only upon a personal .sense of sinfulness and 
 need. Comp. ch. 2:7; Isaiah ^> : 22. 
 
 14-21. "The passage which follows is, in style, 
 one of the most obscure jiortions of the Epistle. 
 The obscurity comes from the argument lieing 
 founded on passages of the O. T. The struct- 
 ure becomes disjointed and unmanageable from 
 the number of the quotations. Some trains of 
 thought are carried on too far for the Apostle's 
 piiri)ose, while others arc so briefly hinted at as 
 to be hardly intelligible. Yet if, instead of en- 
 tangling ourselves in the meshes of the success- 
 ive clauses, we place ourselves at a distance and 
 .survey the whole at a glance, there is no difficulty 
 in understanding the general meaning. No one 
 can doubt that the Apostle intends to say that 
 the prophets had already foretold the rejection 
 if the Jews and the acceptance of the Gentiles. 
 But the texts by which he seeks to prove or 
 express this, are interspersed partly with difficul- 
 ties which he himself felt ; partly also with gen- 
 eral statements about the mode in which the 
 Gospel was given." — {Jowctt.) The object is, I be- 
 lieve, as explained on pages 18:^, 184, to urge on to 
 the Jews the duty of aggressive missionary work 
 from which their whole national habit held them 
 back. In ])ursuing this object, Paul has already 
 shown that the Gospel is intended for all ; then 
 he argues that to make it efficacious, the Lord of 
 Life and Light, the Healer, Heli)er, Saviour, the 
 One who is manifested in and through the Mes- 
 siah, must be made known to the pagans ; then 
 he cites as supporting this doctrine the words of 
 Isaiah 52 ; 7; then he cites Isaiah 53 ; 1. Who 
 hath heard our report, as it were parenthetically, 
 to bring tiie Jews to the consciousness that they 
 have ignored the mes.sage wlum it was brought to 
 them ; a logical diversion, but not really a diver- 
 bi<jn, because in awakening in the mind of tlie 
 
 Jew a sense of his own guilt, he makes the Jew 
 sympathize with the Gentiles whom he has been 
 accustomed to consider as sinners and outcasts ; 
 then he turns again to the (ientiles, cites Ps. 19 : 4, 
 in which the nature-testimony to God, bearing 
 its witness to all peoples, is set forth, and so 
 infers the culpability of the Gentiles who have 
 also had and rejected a message, the argument 
 being in spirit analogous to that more fully drawn 
 out in ch. 2 : (5-;34, and like that addressed alter- 
 nately to both Jews and Gentiles. Meyer and 
 Alford both interpret differently ; they regard 
 the whole argument as addressed to the Jews, 
 and understand the quotation from Ps. Ill to be 
 applied by Paul to the i(;vcaled word of God. 
 But this seems to me unnatural and to violate 
 the i)laiu meaning of the Psalmist. It is true 
 that Paul is careless about verbal accuracy in 
 his quotations ; but that he ever misinterprets 
 0. T. Scripture in order to enforce his teaching, 
 I should be very unwilling to believe. — Did not 
 Israel know i KiKtw what? Not the Gospel, 
 nor the rejection of the Jews spoken of in the 
 following chapter; but "the fact that such a 
 general proclamation of the Gospel would be 
 made as has-been mentioned in the last verse, 
 raising up the Gentiles into eipiality and rivalry 
 with themselves." — (Alford; so id. so Meijer, Tln>- 
 luck, eh:) The (luotations that follow constitute 
 an affirmative answer to this ({uestion. — First, 
 Moses saith. Fimt, because he is in time the 
 first of the prophets, and the one in whose 
 writinu,s, therefore, such a revelation of the 
 ; glory of the later days would be least h)oked for, 
 . The reference is to Deut. 32 : 31. "God there, 
 in the .song of Moses, threatens the idolatrous 
 Israelites, that he on his jiart will bless the Gen- 
 tile people, and thereby incite the former to 
 jealousy and to wrath, as they had incited him 
 by their worship of idols. Paul recognized in 
 this— according to the rule of the constancy of 
 the divine ways in the historj' of the develop- 
 ment of the theocracy— a type of the attaining 
 of the Gentiles to i>:irticipation in the cominun- 
 ion of God's peojile, wiiereliy the jc.ilnu.sy and 
 wrath of thr Jews will he excited." -( Mi'ijer.) — 
 Isaiali is very hold. He states .vpliiiilv and 
 
188 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 [Ch. X, 
 
 20 But Esaias is very bold, and saitb, I * was found 
 of them that sought me not ; I was made manifest unto 
 them that aslced not after me. 
 
 21 But to Israel he saith, All day long I have 
 stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gain- 
 saying people. 
 
 e Isa. 65 : 1, i. 
 
 clearly what Moses states enigmatically and 
 obscurely. The meaning of both is more clearly 
 brought out by Paul in the following chapter, 
 where he maintains that the rejection of Israel 
 
 is that the Gentiles may be received, and so 
 finally all, both Jews and Gentiles, may enter 
 into the divine life. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 OUR DEBT TO JUDAISM, 
 
 I BAT then, Did God cast off his people ? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the 
 seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God did not cast off his people which he foreknew. 
 Or wot ye not what the scripture s^aith 'of Elijah ? how he pleadcth with God against Israel, 
 Lord, they have killed thy prophets, they have digged down thine altars : and I am left alone, 
 and they seek my life. But what saith the answer of God unto him ? I have left for myself 
 seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to Baal. Even so then at this present time 
 also there is a remnant according to the election of grace But il' it is by grace, it is no more of 
 works : otherwise grace is no more grace. What then f That which Israel secketh for, that he 
 obtained not ; but the election obtained it, and the rest were hardened ; according as it is writ- 
 ten, God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should 
 not hear, unto this ver>' day. And David saith. 
 
 Let their table be made a snare, and a trap. 
 And a stumblingblock, and a recomjjense unto them : 
 Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, 
 And bow thou down their back alway. 
 
 * I say then. Did they stumble that they might fall ? God forbid : but by their ^fall salvation^* 
 cotiie unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy. Now if their fall is the riches of the 
 world, and their loss the riches of the Gentiles ; how much more their fulness ? 
 
 But I speak to you that are Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle of Gentiles, I 
 glorify my ministry : if by any means I may provoke to jealousy fhem that are my flesh, and 
 may save some of them. For if the casting away of them is the reconciling of the world, what 
 shall the receinng of them be, but life from the dead ? And if the firstfruit is holy, so is the 
 lamp: and if the root is holy, so are the branches. But if some of the branches were broken off, 
 and thou, being a wild olive, wast grafted in among them, and didst become partaker with them 
 ■■of the root of the fatness of the olive tree: glory not over the branches: but if thou gloriest, it 
 is not thou that bearest the root, but the root thee. Thou wilt say then. Branches were broken 
 off, that I might be grafted in. Well; by their unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest 
 by thy faith. Be not highminded. but fear : for if God spared not the natural branches, neither 
 will he spare thee. Behold then the goodness and severity of Gtod : toward them that fell, 
 severity; but toward thee, God's goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou 
 also Shalt be cut off. And they also, if they continue not in their unbelief, shall be grafted in: 
 for God is able to graft them in again. For if thon wast cut out of that which is by nature a 
 wild olive tree, and wast grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree : how much more shall 
 these, which are the natural branchex. be grafted into their own olive tree ? 
 
 For I would not, brethren, have you ignorant of this mystery, lest ye be wise in your own 
 conceits, that a hardening in part hath befallen Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come 
 in; and so all Israel shall be saved : even as it is written. 
 
 There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer; 
 He shall turn away 'ungodliness from Jacob: 
 And this is ^my covenant unto them, 
 When I shall take away their sins. 
 
 Afl touching the gospel, they are enemi(;8 for your sake: but as touching the election, they are 
 beloved for the fathers' sake For the gifts and the calling of God are "without repentance. 
 For as ye in time past were disobedient to God. but now have obtained mercy by their disobedi- 
 ence, even so have these also now been disobedient, that by the mercy shewn to you they also 
 may now obtain mercy. For God hath shut up all unto disobedience, that he might have mercy 
 upon all. 
 
 O the depth 'of the riches "both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God I how unsearch- 
 able are his judgements, and his ways past tracing out! For who hath known the mind of the 
 Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recom- 
 pensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and unto him, are all things. To him 
 l)e the glory 'for ever. Amen. 
 
 * Begin the para- 
 graph here iaste«d 
 of at Ter. IS.— 
 Am.Com. 
 
 2 Or, trespass. 
 
 3 Many ancient au- 
 thorities read of 
 the root and o/tie 
 fatness. 
 
 4 Or. ungodlinesBM 
 
 5 Gr. tfit covenatU 
 from me. 
 
 6 Or. not repented 
 of 
 
 7 Or, of the riches 
 and the wisdom, 
 .tc. 
 
 H Or, both of wis- 
 dom, <tc. 
 
 9 Or. unto the age*. 
 
I'JU liUMA^N^. [Ch. XI. 
 
 It may not unnaturally seem to the student that this eleventh chapter has no particu- 
 lar relation to the problems of the nineteenth century. The conditions which existed 
 in the first century, and gave rise to this chapter, exist no longer. The Jews looked upon 
 the Greeks and Romans with abhorrence as an outcast people. The Greek and Romans 
 looked upon the Jews with contempt, as a narrow-minded, superstitious, and uncultivated 
 people. A great gull' was fixed between them. That there was any thing common in their 
 origin, nature, or destiny, neitlier imagined. That there was any brotherhood of man, 
 which included in itself all races and nationalities, no one thought. The Church of Christ 
 called into itself adherents from both Jew and Gentile. But when they had come into the 
 Church, they had at first nothing in common except their faith in Christ. The great gulf 
 which .separated them without the Cliurch still existed, though narrowed, as a division 
 within the Cliurch. In this chapter Paul attempts to close up tlie breach. He does this 
 with an orator's true genius ; not by logical argument t(j sh(nv that these race prejudices 
 were illogical ; race prejudices are not founded on reason, and can not be dissipated by 
 reason. He does it by considerations whose aim it is tu destroy the prejudice altogether. 
 To the Jew he has shown in the previous chapter that God always included the Gentile in 
 his grace. The Gentiles were never a cast-off people. To the Gentile he shows in this 
 chapter their indebtedness to the Jew. Their prejudice is against a people whose debtor 
 they are, and through whom they have been received into the privileges of the Gospel. 
 Thus he plays off one prejudice against the other, that he may neutralize both. In speak- 
 ing to the Jews his thought includes the Gentiles ; in speaking to the Gentiles he seeks to 
 provoke to jealousy his own* people, the Jews, that he may save some uf them. 
 
 But the condition which existed in Rome in the first century does not exist in the nine- 
 teenth century in the United States. There is no .such division between Jew and Gentile 
 now as then. The chapter seems to belong to a past age. We read it with interest as 
 a record of religious labors that have achieved their end ; but not as a word of instruction 
 whose doctrine our own times need. And therefore we read it very little. It is quite safe 
 to say that most Bible readers, if not most students of Romans, skip chapters nine, ten, and 
 eleven, in their reading, as utterances that have no relation to modern problems, and 
 therefore contain little or no instruction for modern Christians. But is it quite certain that 
 this is a correct conclusion ] Few readers of the Bible probably fijrmulate it ; they act upon 
 without ever really stating it. It will not bear statement. Fonuulating it proves it false. 
 
 Since Paul's time Paul's apprehension has been fully justified. The contempt of the 
 Jew for the Gentile has been more than repaid by the Gentile's contempt for the Jew. The 
 Jew has been despised as an outca.st. Every indignity has been heaped upon him. He has 
 been a man without a country; every-where a stranger in a strange land ; every- where an exile; 
 unprotected by the law; uncared for by the Church; the avenues to preferment forbidden 
 to him ; refused political privileges and political rights ; hindered in or absolutely pro- 
 liibited from pursuing honorable callings and professions ; denied facilities accorded to all 
 others for education ; in the country a vagabond, in the cities shut up in quarters always 
 restricted and unhealthy, and often absolutely loathsome. The pictures which Shakespeare, 
 Walter Scott, and Robert Browning have afi'orded of the Christian's treatment of the Jew, of 
 the prejudice in Christian hearts against the Jew, are terribly realistic. Even in our own 
 time and our own land, where legal restrictions and disabilities are impossible, the prejudice 
 which has in times past so wronged them, still continues, and has shown itself in exclusion 
 from social intercourse, and even from public hotels. As long as this prejudice against the 
 Jewish people continues, so long the considerations which Paul addresses to his Gentile 
 readers in the eleventh chajiter of Romans can not be considered out of date. 
 
Cif. \I.] ' K'U.MANS. 191 
 
 The worUr.s silvatioii i.s of the Jews.' This is the hrst, fireat, indisputable historical 
 fact. Christianity itself is a },'raft on Judaism; the ^lory of Christianity is tiie glory of 
 the fruit of a ripened Judai^nl. It is true that the graft has taken the place of the old 
 stock; but it is true that the graft could have borne no fiuit if there had been no stock on 
 which to graft it. To Judaism we owe the political institutions of a free state. The germs 
 of popular government are all to be found in the elements of the Hebraic commonwealth 
 under Moses: popular suftVage ; government organized into its three departments, the le"is- 
 lative, the executive, and the judicial; two great representative assemblies, a House of Depu- 
 ties and a Senate ; a system of laws independent of, not emanating from, the will of a single 
 despot ; provisions of mercy mitigating the severity of absolute justice, and forbidding the 
 cruelty of perscmal revenge." To Judaism we owe, if not monotheism, at least the concep- 
 tion of God as the Father of the human race. It may indeed be contended, with some show^ 
 of reason, that back of all polytheistic .systems there was a general faith in one Great Spirit 
 from whom all lesser deities proceeded, and for whom they administered. But the personal 
 and paternal relation of God to the human race is not to be found outside the Hebraic life 
 and literature. " Like as a Father pitieth them that fear him " is a sentiment not discover- 
 able in any songs of worship except in those sung in the old Hebrew^ temple. Neither the 
 Brahm of India, nor the Jupiter of Greece, nor the Jove of Rcune, nor the Thor of the 
 Norse legends, nor the Great Spirit of the North American aborigines bear any resemblance 
 to the Father of Hebrew faith. The "Our Father "of our childhood we have inherited 
 from the despised Jew. From them al.so we have received a religion that is ethical and 
 ethics that are religious. China had ethics without religion ; Greece and Rome religion 
 without ethics. A religion which taught both reverence toward God and duty toward man, 
 and found the sanction of duty toward man in reverence toward God, a religion that teaches 
 that men please God only by serving their fellow-men, the world has obtained from the 
 prophets of Judaism. I do not forget the teachings of Buildha, which, in their j^rimitive 
 and purest forms, recognize no religious merit except in works of charity and mercy; but 
 neither do I forget that he gave to his followers neither the inspiration of love nor of hope ; 
 neither an expectiiti(jn of doing that which would be well pleasing to a Father in heaven, 
 nor that which would lead them from a life of discipline and dying to one of deathless 
 immortality. To Judaism we ow^e the conception of redemption: the idea of life as a 
 process not merely of i)reparation, but of healing, and of faith in G(jd as the Purifer and 
 the Healer. Out of this faith in God as the Redeemer, interpreted to the ancient Hebrews 
 by the system of sacrifices and purifications not less than by the explicit words of his 
 dinnest poet-prophet.*, has grown the modern conception of religion as a method not merely 
 nor mainly of moral government, but of .spiritual therapeutics, and all the resultant social 
 redemptive influences which more an<l more characterize modern society. Out of this has 
 grown a penology which is more redemptive than punitive, prisons which are penitentiaries 
 and reformatories, schools which are architects and builders of character, systems of educa- 
 tion which are inspirers and leaders of moral and intellectual progress, churches which are 
 not mere centers of self-culture or priestly soul-insurance offices, but sources of niissionary 
 activity, philanthropies which are endeavoring to make men not merely more comfortable, 
 but more manly. From the Jew we have inherited the collective literature which consti- 
 tutes the world's text-book of religion; and from him came the One in whom is embodied 
 all the elements of thought and life needed for the W(jrld's renovation. Liberty, Law, 
 
 ' John 4 : 22 ; Isaiah 2:3; Rom. 9 : 4, 5. 
 
 ^ See for fuller exposition of these iirinciiiles, AliVmtt's "Life of Christ," ch. 2, ami Wines' "Laws of tho 
 
 ient Hebrews." 
 
 Ancient Hebrews." 
 
192 EOMANS. [Ch. XL 
 
 Order, tlie revelation of a Personal God, the incarnation of a spiritual righteousness, a 
 divinely-inspired ethics, and the world's Redeemer, the source and the inspiration of all 
 redemptive influences are all included in our debt to Judaism. "Glory not over the 
 branches ; but if thou gloriest, it is not thou that bearest the root, but the root thee." 
 
 It is impossible to read the close of this chapter without a certain feeling of bewilder- 
 ment of awe and perplexity of hope. " God hath concluded them al] in unbelief that he 
 might have mercy upon all." How ? Does Paul merely mean that, as the result of the 
 long processes of history, a remnant of the Jewish people will at last resume their primitive 
 faith, see in the New Testament the flower and fruit of the Old, and in Christ the fulfill- 
 ment (if the hopes and tlie promises of Moses, David, and Isaiah ? Or does he mean that in 
 some other sphere, some cycle beyond this one in which we live, some future scene of the 
 great drama of redemption of which we see only a little part, the Jewish race, as a race, 
 will disct)ver that a veil has been over their faces, as they read Moses and the prophets, 
 that traditionalism has blinded their faith, that they have not kept pace with the world's 
 progress and the providences of God, and will find what they did not find on earth, the 
 glory of the Father in the face of Jesus Christ his Son ? If to afiirm this with positiveness 
 is more than Paul's language will warrant, to deny the possibility of it is to deny the possi- 
 bility of a hope which his words justly awaken. I am content to do neither; but in the 
 bewilderment of a hope too large to be defined, and yet too vague to be a creed, say with the 
 Apostle, " 0, the deptli of the riches and of the wisdom and the knowledge of God I How 
 unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out. Of him, and through liim, 
 and unto him are all things; to whom be the glory forever. Amen." 
 
Oh. XL] 
 
 liUMANS. 
 
 V.Ky 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 ISAV then, Iliith Cioil • cast away his people ? God 
 forbid. For 1 also am an Israelite, of the seed of 
 Abraham, <»/" the tribe of Henjaniin. 
 
 2 liod hath not cast away his people which he fore- 
 kiu-w." ^\■ot ye not what the scripture saith of Ellas ? 
 how he niaketh intercession to God against Israel,' 
 saving. 
 
 3 Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged 
 
 down thine altars ; and I am left alone, and they seek 
 my life. 
 
 4 But what saith the answer of God unto him .' i 
 have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who 
 have not bowed the knee to i/ti- image of Maal. 
 
 5 Even so'' then at this present time also there is a 
 remnant according to the election of grace. 
 
 6 .\nd if by grace,'' thcTi is it no more of works : 
 otherwise grace is no more grace. Hut if it be of 
 works, then is it no more grace : otherwise work is no 
 more work. 
 
 a 1 Sam. 12 : Si j Pa. 71 : 7, 8 ; 89 : 31-37 b cli. 8 : 49 c 1 Kings 19 : 10-18 1 cli. 9 : 27 e ch. 4 : 4, S.; Gal. 5:4; Eph. « : 8. 
 
 Ch. 11. CHIMSTIANITY AND .IUDAISM.-Christiani- 
 
 TY'S INDEBTEDNESS TO .TUDAISM : THAT OP TUE 
 OUAFT TO TUE TREE. — THE INCLU8IVENESS AND THE 
 EXCLUSIVENESS OF God's MEKCT.— ThE OLD COVE- 
 NANT HE-AFFIRMED.— Redemption a world rei.emp- 
 
 TION. 
 
 1-4. I say then, did God cast otT his 
 people ? The reader must remember that the 
 chapter divisions were not in the original letter; 
 this question follows closely ujion the statement 
 in the preceding chapter, implying the rejection 
 of Israel ; the question itself, as phrased in the 
 urigin;d, implies a negative answer. — Be it not 
 so, for I also am an Israelite. This does 
 not constitute a reason why God could not haye 
 cast off his people, but a reason why I'aul could 
 not be supposed to entertain such a thought. lie 
 identifies himself in s^'uipathy with his Jewish 
 readers ; his object here, as in many parallel 
 l)assages, is not logical, l)ut sympatlietie. As a 
 natural orator he identifies himself with those 
 whom he wisiies to influence. ^(Jod did not 
 cast off his people, whom he foreknew. 
 The Apostle may mean either those among Israel 
 whom he foreknew, that is, the elect or chosen, 
 — and this is the interpretation of Origen, Augus- 
 tine. Chrysostom, Calvin, and I lodge, — or he may 
 mean that God has not cast ofE his people Israel, 
 whom, as a people, he foreknew, choosing them 
 to be the depository of the law, and intrusted 
 with the oracles and selected as the ministers of 
 his grace (ch. 3:i, 2). This is the interpretation 
 of .Vlford, ^leycr, Godet, Beet, and tlie modern 
 excretes generally. The meaning then, would be, 
 God can not have cast off liis people ; to .suppose 
 this would be to contradict their entire sacred 
 history. Eiiher construction is grammalieall)' 
 possible ; the former seems to me more conso- 
 nant with the context, especially with what fol- 
 lows, which seems to be an enforcement of Paul's 
 general doctrine that the people of God are not 
 the natural children of Ahrahiim, but his spiritual 
 children, that is, those who possess a like spirit 
 of faith (rh. 2 : 2s, 29 J .i : i.i-18). — Wot yc not, etc. 
 The reference is to 1 Kings 19 : KM 8. The apiili- 
 cation of the parallel is sufl](ieiitly plain, and the 
 principle is applicable in all times of moral de- 
 
 generacy and spiritual apostasj-. The true people 
 of God at such times are not tlie children of their 
 fathers, wiiethcr Jews or Puritans, but those 
 who are faithful to the principles which made 
 Jews or Puritans true children of God. — The 
 Scriptures say of Elijah. Literally, in Elijah, 
 that is, in the i)assage treating of Elijah ; the 
 ancients were accustomed to use proper names 
 as means of designating principal passages to 
 which they wished to refer, our method of refer- 
 ence to chapter or passage being, of course, 
 unknown. 
 
 5-10. Even so; that is, in the same manner, 
 according to the same principle. — At this pres- 
 ent time also — that is, this time of Israel's 
 iil^pareiit rejection — there is a remnant, ac- 
 cording to the election of Jirace. For illus- 
 tration of such remnant, see Acts :j : -il, 47; 
 Jr : 33 ; 5 : 14 ; 0:7. This word cliTlion has become 
 so overlaid with theological discussions <jf a later 
 period that it is difficult for us to realize its 
 meaning in Paul's use of it. The reader must 
 remember that the Jews had been accustomed 
 for generations to regard tliemseh'es as God's 
 chosen people, that in spite of many cautions 
 which their proj)hets had given them, they had 
 misinterpreted the teaching which should have 
 produced humility, and, under the instructions 
 of Pharisaism, tlie orthodox Jews had come to 
 consider themselves by right the people of God. 
 Paul's aim is to bring tliem back to the true doc- 
 trine of divine choice, to show tliem, as their 
 ancient proi)hets had shown them, that they 
 were chosen not from any merit of their own, 
 but by the free grace of God, and less for special 
 privileges than for high trusts and holy living 
 (tonip. Doiit.-7 : 6-s). Paul neither states nor imiilifs 
 that what God elects, either for men or for na- 
 tions, is without reason, but that the reason is not 
 something in the man or the nation, which gives 
 to either a moral right to be so diosen. — If it is 
 by ^race, etc. A concise putting of a conclu- 
 sive ar^'ument. If men had the right to be 
 chosen for what they had believed, experienced, 
 or done, there is no divine grace in the choosing. 
 Merit in man and grace in Goil, as the ground of 
 God's helpfulness, are mutuiilly i xclusiv ■. The 
 
194 
 
 IfOMANS. 
 
 [Ch. XL 
 
 7 What then? Israel' hath not obtained that which 
 he seeketh for ; but the election hath obtained it, and 
 the rest were blinded 
 
 8 (According as it is written, God hath given them 
 the spirit of slumber.s eyes" that they should not see, 
 and ears that they should not hear ;) unto this day. 
 
 9 And David saith, Let their table' be made a snare, 
 
 f ch. 9 : 31 
 
 . g Isa. 29 : 10 .... h Deut. 29 : 4 ; Isa. 
 
 and a trap, and a stumblingblock, and a recompence 
 unto them : 
 
 lo Let their e3'es be darkened, that they may not 
 see, and bow down their back alway. 
 
 Ill say then. Have they stumbled that they should 
 fall ? God forbid : but rather through their fall salva- 
 tion is come unto the Gentiles,' lor to provoke them to 
 jealousy. 
 
 Pb. 69 : 22, 23 j ch. 10 : 19 ; Acts 13 : 4« ; 28 : 24-28. 
 
 second clause of this verse, '■'■But if it he ■works" 
 etc., is lacking in the best manuscripts, and is 
 omitted from the Revised Version. It is, at all 
 events, simply a parallel putting of the same 
 argument in a different form. — What then ? 
 What Israel is in search of this day, it has 
 not found, but the election has found it. 
 The language is dramatic, a quasi dialogue with 
 an objector. It ma}' be paraphrased thus : Ob- 
 jector : Then Israel has failed in that which, 
 through its long history, it has sought and hoped 
 for, the promised Messiah ? Answer : The chosen 
 people of God have not failed, but if some Avere 
 hardened, this is in accordance with the same 
 prophecies which foretold a ^Messiah, and en- I 
 kindled a national hope in his coming. — The 
 rest AV^ere hardened. Literally, petrified, made i 
 liard like stone. IIow, whether by their own 
 acts or liy the providence or even direct influence 
 of God, Paul does not here intimate. He simply 
 describes the actual results of a process, the 
 causes of which he does not here consider. — As 
 it is written. The reference i.; to Deut. CO : 4 ; 
 perhaps also to Isaiah G : 10. — CJod gives to 
 them a spirit of torpor. The stupefaction 
 which follows intoxication seems to be implied. 
 ^Eyes that should not see, and ears that 
 should not hear. So rendered by Alford, Meyer 
 and others ; but it may equally and legitimately 
 be rendered, Hijes not seeing, cars not Iwanng. 
 The difference is not, however, very material ; 
 since, if God gives e3-es that do not see, it must 
 be assumed that he intends that they shall not 
 see. In what reuse does God give the spirit of 
 stupor and the non-seeing eyes? for these are 
 recognized by Paul as distinctively bestowed by 
 God. We may suppose with Dr. Ilodge that the 
 Apostle describes positive, punitive inflictions. 
 "God says, 'I will irive a'ou eyes that see not; ' 
 it is .1 dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the 
 living God ; the strokes of Lis justice blind and 
 bewilder and harden the soul."' Or we may un- 
 derstand that God has so constituted the moral 
 order of the universe that stupor shall follow in- 
 toxication, that j'ieldingone"s self up to self-love, 
 in any of its forms, shall resu.!'; in a gradual de- 
 cay, by disuse, of the moral and spiritual powers, 
 and that this loss of faith and power through 
 self-indulgence is thus given by God throuirh 
 the operation of the moral law which hr has 
 
 constituted. Which view of the case is the more 
 philosophical, and the more in accordance with 
 the manifest teaching of life, I do not need here 
 to consider. Paul speaks merely of the result, 
 as it is manifested in actual life, without entering 
 into the inquiry, whether this result is the con- 
 sequence of special punitive inflictions, or of the 
 moral order of the universe, which makes the 
 end of sin always to be death. — Unto this day. 
 These words occur in Gen. 48 : 1.5, but are prob- 
 ably used by Paul with an application reaching 
 down to his own time. — And David saith, etc. 
 In Psalm (i9 : 22, 23. The Apostle quotes David 
 as ho has quoted Moses and Isaiah, for the pur- 
 pose of showing that the enemies of God, whether 
 Israelites or Gentiles, will be treated in the same 
 manner and upon the same principles, and that 
 this doctrine is in accordance with the teaching 
 of the foremost of the O. T. writers. This is not 
 the place to consider at length the moral difficul- 
 ties presented by David's imprecatory Psalms. 
 It must suffice here to sa\% that to me they are 
 explicable only as I recognize in the Bible a 
 record of and adajrted to the gradual moral 
 development in the human race ; and so, in this 
 expression of an experience, which in the brighter 
 light of the N. T. teaching, especiallj* in that of 
 the example of Jesus Christ, would not be justi- 
 fiable in us. In an age when every man took into 
 his own hands the punishment of his own ene- 
 mies, Davi.l refused to avenge himself on his 
 enemies, and poured out his complaints against 
 them unto God, and so marked a great advance 
 in the mor.d life of the race ; but Christ has 
 taug'.it us something still better in the saying, 
 ' Bless them that curse ye, do good to them that 
 /hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use 
 you and persecute you." 
 
 11-15. Have they stumbled that they 
 might fall ? It might have been thought that 
 the blindness, and the spirit of torpor, and the 
 non-seeing eyes, and the non-hearing ears which 
 Paul has spoken of were the end of God's ad- 
 ministration to those of Israel who were not 
 children of faith, and this interpretation seems 
 to me involved in Dr. Hodge's comment given 
 above ; this, however, Paul repudiates. They 
 have not stumbled in order that they should 
 finally fall ; their stumbling and falling is itself 
 by God to be overruled and made to serve the 
 
Cii. XL] 
 
 EOMANS. 
 
 105 
 
 12 Now if the fall of tliem he the riches of the world, 
 and the diminishing of iheni the riches of the Gentiles, 
 how much more iheir fulness ? 
 
 13 Kor 1 speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I '' am 
 the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine ofBce ; 
 
 14 If by any means I mav provoke to emulation 
 tkt-»i whicli are my flesh, ami might save ' some ol them. 
 
 15 Kor if the casting away of them be the reconciling 
 
 of the world, what j//<7// tlie receiving 0/ thew Ih\ but 
 life from the dead ? 
 
 16 Kor it'" the firstfruit he holy, Hie lump is also 
 holy: and if the root he holy, so ate the branches. 
 
 17 And if some of the branches" be broken off, and 
 thou, being " a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among 
 them, anil with them partakest of the root and fatness 
 of the olive tree ; 
 
 k Acu 9 : 15 ; Gal. 1 : 16 ; Eph. 3 : 8. . . .1 1 Cor. 7 : 16. . . .m Lev. 23 : 10 ; Numb. 15 : 18-21 . 
 
 . .0 Eph. 2:12, I.;. 
 
 ends of redemption. Through their transgres- 
 sions, salvation comes to tlie Gentiles, their 
 jeahuisy is aroused, and tliej' are awakened from 
 their Ujrpor and incited to seek that which they 
 liad rejected. An illustration of the way in 
 which the falling- of the Jews brings salvation to 
 the Gentiles is afTorded by Acts \'^ : 4.V49 ; an 
 illustration of the way in which jealousy brings 
 back the Gospel tt) the Jews is hinted at in Phil. 
 1 ; 15-18. — If therefore, etc. The whole argu- 
 ment implies the eventual restoration of the 
 Jews to a full participation in the benefits of the 
 Messiah's kingdom, from which they have shut 
 themselves out temporarily. The argument is 
 addressed to the Gentiles, lest the latter should 
 be induced to think, as indeed in these latter 
 days we are too much accustomed to do, that 
 the Jews are an apostate and outcast race, and 
 that other chosen people of God have taken their 
 place. The Apostle's object is made clear in the 
 following verses. — I speak. That is, I am now 
 speaking. — To you that are Gentiles. * * * 
 If by any means I may provoke jealousy. 
 Addressing an audience, partly- Jews and partly 
 Gentiles, separated by a high partition wall of 
 prejudice, he speaks first to one and then to the 
 other; playing them o(T, so to speak, one against 
 the otlier, that he may break down the wall of 
 partition between them and make them one in 
 
 Christ Jesus (comp. Epb. 2:14-1S; Gal. 3: 2S). — FoF if 
 
 the caxtinjT away of them is the reconcil- 
 ing of tlie world. The Jew'ish nation in re- 
 jecting Christ and crucifying him, by one and 
 the same act rejected themselves and provided a 
 means whereby the world could be reconciled 
 unto (iod. — >\ hat shall the receiving of 
 them be, if not life from the dead ? In such 
 impassioned arguments as those of the Apostle 
 Paul, each phrase can not be weighed and meas- 
 ured as though he were writing scientifically. 
 Life from the dead, however, in Paul's usa^'c, 
 generally, if not always, sitrnifies spiritual life 
 here, not resurrection in the future. The Apos- 
 tle's language is tantamount to : If by crucifying 
 Christ, thus rejecting themselves, the Jew pro- 
 vides for the world's reconciliation, how much 
 mote shall their acceptance gl' the crucified Mes- 
 siah, ;ind consequent reception into his kingdom, 
 enure to that spiritual life which constitutes the 
 kiii'.'^doni of God on the earth. 
 
 lG-21. The argument of the Apostle in these 
 verses is addressed wholly to the (ientiles for the 
 purpose of combating that spiritual self-conceit 
 in the Gentiles, which, in the first part of the 
 chapter, he has been combating in the Jews, in 
 an argument addressed to the latter, for the i)ur- 
 pose of convincing them that their eleeticm stands 
 in the grace of God, not in their own national 
 merits, and that those who are not children of 
 faith are not children of God, although they are 
 Israelites, and are liable to be given over to a 
 sjiiritual stufief action. He now turns to the Gen- 
 tiles and argues with them tliat they are not to 
 look down upon the Jews a^ outcasts ; that they 
 come into the taenefitii of rt demption only through 
 the Jewish nation, to whom belongs " the adop- 
 tion, and the g'.ory, and the covenant, and the 
 giving of the law, and tlie service of God, and 
 the promises, whose are the fathers, and of whom, 
 as concerning the flesh, Christ came" (cii. 9 r .'.); 
 and that they will be tlie children of God only 
 as they are ciiihlren of faith. If they continue 
 in faith, they continue in God's election ; if the 
 Jew continue not in his unfaith, he w'ill become 
 again the elect of God. The whole argument is 
 addressed against that anti-Jewish prejudice 
 which, despite the argument, is so prevalent in 
 the Christian Church of to-day. — But if the 
 firstfriiits be holy, so is the lump. "The 
 first-fruit is not here the first-fruit of the field, 
 but the portion of the kneaded lump of dough 
 which was offered as a heave offering to God, 
 and so sanctified for use the rest." — ( AlJ'ord). 
 Hohj is consecrated, set apart from a secular to a 
 sacred use. The Jewish nation \\i\rc thus set 
 apart for God in the call of Abraham to be the 
 father of a chosen people, and in their apostasy 
 they professed that which had been consecrated 
 in the consecration of the first-fruits, that is, 
 Abraham and his immediate descendants, Isaac 
 and Jacob.— If the root is holy, so are the 
 branches. The figure is the same as that in 
 John IT): 1-7. The root is the Church of God, 
 from the time of Abraham down to that of the 
 glorified Church in heaven, that Church which is 
 the temple of God, in which he dwells, the body 
 of Christ, in which he is ever incarnate. The 
 branch which abides in this vine, which draws its 
 lifi- from its root, jiartakes of its divine life, but 
 only so long as it retains this vital ecmnection ; 
 
196 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 [Cir. XI. 
 
 i8 Boast P not against the branches. But if thou 
 boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. 
 
 19 Thou wilt say then. The branches were broken 
 off, that I might be graffed in. 
 
 20 Well ; because of unbelief they were broken off ; 
 and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but 
 fear ; 1 
 
 21 For if God spared not the natural branches, take 
 heed lest he also spare not thee. 
 
 22 Behold therefore the goodness and severity of 
 God : on them which fell, severity ; but toward thee, 
 goodness, if' thou continue in his goodness : otherwise 
 thou ' also shalt be cut off. 
 
 23 And they also, if they' abide not still in unbelief, 
 shall be graffed in : for God is able to graff them in 
 again. 
 
 24 For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which 
 is wild by nature, and wert graffed contrary to nature 
 into a good olive tree ; how much more shall these, 
 which be the natural Iranches^ be graffed into their 
 own olive tree ? 
 
 25 Yox I would not, brethren, that ye should be igno- 
 rant ot this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your 
 own conceits ; that blindness in part " is happened to 
 Israel, until the fulness' of the Gentiles be come in. 
 
 p ICor. 10: 12 q Phil. 2 : 12 r Heb. 3:6. 14; 10: 23, 38 s John 15 : 2 t 
 
 Luke 21 : 21. 
 
 the wild branch grafted in becomes a partaker 
 of the life ; Init if the branch be broken off, it 
 ceases to be a partaker of the life, or to be fruit- 
 ful. — It is not thou who bearest the root, 
 but the root thee. The glory of the Church 
 is not made up of the individual ,^elf-produced 
 experiences of the individual members, but their 
 life is itself produced by the spiritual life which 
 abides in the Church, in which the world's Saviour, 
 the living God, is ever incarnate. — By want of 
 faith they Avere broken oft", bnt thou by 
 faith standest. Faith here is equivalent to 
 abiding in Christ (john is: ■:); uufaith to not abid- 
 ing in Christ (John is : 6). It is still the burden of 
 Paul's teaching to show that faith is the condition 
 of life, whether in Jew or Gentile. — Be not 
 his^hmindcd. That is, set up in your mind, 
 haughty, arrogant (comp. cU. 12: ic). — But fear. 
 Comp. 1 Cor. 10 : 12 ; and for illustration of need 
 of this caution, experience of Peter, Matt. :2() : 
 3:3-35; 69-75. 
 
 22-24. Behold then the goodness and 
 severity of God. Literally, the /lelpfulness and 
 the cxclusiveness of God ; and t his literal meaning 
 seems to me to be Paul's real meaning here. God 
 is helpful, but he is also exclusive in his helpful- 
 ness. What Paul wishes to do is to emphasize 
 both facts, and make clear the conditions by 
 which men may receive this helpfulness from 
 God, and the method by which they exclude 
 themselves from that helpfulness. — Toward 
 them that have fallen exclusiveness, be- 
 cause of their nnfaith. By this unfaith, as 
 Paul has before explained, they are cut off from 
 this gracious helpfulness of God's which can 
 be received only by faith. — But toAvards thee 
 God's helpfulness, if thou continue in his 
 helpfulness. That is, if b}' faith thou continue 
 to keep thyself open to receive his gracious influ- 
 ence. — If they continue not in their un- 
 faith. Unfaith is represented as a positive, not 
 a mere negative condition ; the rejection of God's 
 gracious influence is not a mere failure to receive 
 them. — God is able to graft them in again. 
 They are cut off neither by any inflexible law nor 
 by any acts of God's sovereign will, but by their 
 
 own actions ; and God opens again the door of 
 mercy to those who, by their own acts, have 
 closed it. — For if thou wert cut out of thy 
 natural wild olive tree, and unnaturally 
 wert engrafted into the good olive tree, 
 how much more shall these, the natural 
 branches, be engrafted in their own olive 
 tree ? This is Alford's translation, and gives 
 the figure clearl}' ; but the figure must not be 
 pressed too far. Human nature is the same in 
 Jew and in Gentile ; but the Jews, as believers 
 in one God and expectants of a promised Mes- 
 siah, were more naturallj' ready for the Gospel 
 helpfulness than the Gentiles, who were Poly- 
 theists, whose worship was one only of form, and 
 whose religious rites were mixed with the gross- 
 est immoralities. 
 
 25-29. For I would not, brethren, that 
 ye should be ignorant of this mystery. 
 This word mystery sig-nified in ancient religions, 
 especially the Greek and Roman, certain rites 
 and ceremonies, consisting of purifications, sacri- 
 fices, processions, songs and dances, dramatic 
 performances, and the like, which were only 
 known to and practiced by certain initiated men 
 and women, and were ijerlbrmed in strict seclu- 
 sion, their fascination being increased by all the 
 mechanical contrivances, and the effects of light 
 and sound which the priest could command. In 
 N. T. usage the term is applied to religious ex- 
 periences, which are a mystery to those who have, 
 not by spiritual life entered into them (1 Cor. 2 : 6-10). 
 It is not applied to any secret kept concealed, but 
 on the contrary, is always accompanied with the 
 
 idea of revelation (comp. Matt. 13 : 11 ; Rom. 16 : 25 ; 
 Eph. 5 : 2; 1 Tim. 3: IG : 2 Tbess. 2: ?). "The USC of the 
 
 word mystery in Scripture affords no ground 
 for the popular application of the term mysti-ry 
 to the truths of the Christian religion. It means 
 not what is, but what was a secret, into which, 
 if we may use heathen language, the believer has 
 become initiated. "—(^o»!rfO. This is cleariy the 
 meaning here : Paul would not have his Gentile 
 i-eaders ignorant of the true interj)retation of the 
 blindness which had fallen upon Israel and their 
 consequent rejection.— That hardness (v,r. s, 
 
Cii. Xl.J 
 
 KOMANS. 
 
 197 
 
 26 And SI) all Israel shall be saved : as ii is written," 
 There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall 
 turn away ungodliness iroui Jacob: 
 
 27 Kor this" /V my covenant unto them, when I shall 
 take away their sins. 
 
 28 As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for 
 vour sakes : but as toucluns the election, they are be- 
 loved > lor the lathers' sakes. 
 
 29 Kor the gifts and calimg of God are without 
 repentance.' 
 
 30 For as ye in times" past have not believed God, 
 yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief: 
 
 31 Even so have these also now not believed, that 
 through your mercy they also inav obtain mercy. 
 
 32 I'or God" hath concluded tliem all in unbelief, 
 that he might have mercy upon all. 
 
 33 O "^ the depth of tlie riches both of the wisdom 
 anii knowledge ol God! how unsearchable"' are his 
 judgments, and his ways past finding out ! 
 
 * Isa. 59:20 x Jer. 31 : 31, eic. ; Heb. 10:16 y Deut. 10:15 z Numb. 23:19. 
 
 cPs. 107:8, etc... .d Job 11: 7; Ps. 92 : 5. 
 
 Eph.2 : 2...,b ch. 3 
 
 note) has ill part happened to Israel. The 
 
 iiieaniuf; may either hi' |)artial harduess has hap- 
 pened to all Israel, or a luirdiiess lias happuued to a 
 part of Israel ; the hitter hiterpretaiioii is more 
 iu accordance with the Aposth-'s Hue of thought 
 in this chapter. — Until the fulness of the 
 (•entiles be come in. The meauiug of the 
 jilirase. Fulness or abundance of tlie Gentiles, is 
 to be interpreted by such prophetic pictures as 
 Kev. 5 : 13 ; 7:9; 21 : 24. To conclude universal 
 salvation from this phrase would be too large a 
 deduction; but itcertaiiilj- implies something very 
 different from an elect few, gathered out of all 
 nations — And so all Israel shall be saved. 
 Whether the Apostle lias in mind the eventual 
 restoration of the Jewish race, as a race, to the 
 Church of God by their acceptance of Christ, as 
 the promised Messiah, or whether the langu.ige 
 implies that every Jew will be eventually saved, 
 by some process of redemption, carried on to 
 its completion in a future life, has been warmly 
 discussed. It is doubtful whether either hy- 
 pothesis was in his mind. He deals, in accord- 
 ance with the spirit of the Hebrew prophet, with 
 truth in a large and somewhat undefined way, 
 his aim being not to effect a carefully defined 
 philosophy of the moral government of the uni- 
 verse, but to break down, in his immediate read- 
 ers, the spirit of haughtiness and self-conceit, 
 and to produce in them acatholic spirit ; and this 
 he does by holding before them the large hope 
 of a redemption, universal in its scope and possi- 
 bilities, whatever it may be in its actual results, 
 and so large in its actual results, that he may 
 legitimately speak of it as affording salvation to 
 the abundance of the (ientiles on the one hand, 
 and to all Israel on the other. — There shall 
 come out of Zion,etc. The quotation is from 
 l'.s:ihn 14:7; Isaiah 59:20; though, as usual 
 with the Apostle, the quotation is evidently 
 from memory, and not verbally exact. Observe 
 here, as everywhere throughout Paul's writings, 
 and indeed throughout both the O. and N. T., 
 redemption consists not in turning away penal- 
 ties, but ungodliness ; not in taking away punish- 
 ment, but sin.- As concerning the Gospel. 
 * * * A« touching the election. "Their 
 cause, the Apostle says, may be looked at in two 
 
 ways; in reference to the Gospel, they are re- 
 jected, and tliis you must regard as a part of the 
 mercy of God to you ; but they are still the elect, 
 for the sake of tluir fathers whom God loved." 
 — (.Towctt.) — For the gifts and calling of God 
 are without repentance. Literally, without 
 change of purpose; comp. Num. 23:10; 1 Sam. 
 1.5 : 20 ; Phil. 1 : C. ; Hebrews 13 : 8 ; 2 Tim. 2 : 13. 
 The unchangeableness of God may, as Paul has 
 shown in a previous part of this chapter, lead to 
 changed results in the case of the Individual, 
 as by faith or unfaith, he connects hunself with 
 or severs himself from God. But God's mercy 
 endureth forever, and the gifts and promises 
 which he has made in his word he will hold to, 
 until the purposes of his love are accomplished. 
 Having loved his own, he will love them unto the 
 
 end(j<ilin 13 :l). 
 
 30-32. For as ye in times past were 
 disobedient to God. In the Old Version, 
 Have not believed God. The original implies 
 both — that disobedience which comes by not be- 
 ing persuaded of the truth of God's word, as 
 Peter, who rushed into the denial of his Lord 
 because he did not believe the Lord's warning. — 
 Yet have now obtained mercy thronu;h 
 their disobedience. The disobedience of the 
 Jews, and their refusal to be persuaded of the 
 truthof God's word, having, as Paul has explained 
 above, opened the door to the Gentiles. — Even 
 so have these also. That is, the Jews have 
 now been disobedient ; that through your mercy, 
 i. e., the mercy shown to you, they also may ob- 
 tain mercy ; the wliole verse is a simple restate- 
 ment of the principles involved in verse 15. 
 — For God shut up all (both Jew and Gentile) 
 in disobedience, that he might have 
 mercy upon all. The conclusion is the same 
 as that reached in ch. 3 : 19. 20. This sentence, 
 however, is not to be severed from Paul's previ- 
 ous declanition, that both Jew and Gentile have 
 shut themselves up in disobedience by their un- 
 faith. 
 
 33-36. These verses sum up the whole argu- 
 ment of chapters 10, 11. which closes as chapters 
 7, 8, with an ascription of praise to God. — O! 
 the depths of the riches, and the wisdom, 
 and the knowledge of (.od. This appears 
 
198 
 
 EOMANS. 
 
 [Ch. XI. 
 
 34 For who" halh known the mind of the Lord? or 
 who hath been his counsellor ? 
 
 35 Or who' hath first gn-en to him, and it shall be 
 recompensed unto him again ? 
 
 36 Fore of him, and through him, and to him, are all 
 things : to whom 6e glory for ever. Amen. 
 
 e Isa. 40 : 13 ; Jer. 23 : 18 f Job 41 : 11 g 1 Cor. 8:6; Col. 1 : 16. 
 
 to be a better rendering of the original than that 
 afforded by our English Bible, in both the Old 
 and New Versions ; it is the one adoptel by 
 Jowett, Alford, Bengel, Tholuek, and Meyer. 
 Either rendering is, however, possible ; and the 
 other is supported by Augustine, Luther, Calvin, 
 and Godet. If the former interpretation is taken, 
 then the riches of God implies the riches of his 
 love or mercy ; his wisdom, the admirable skill 
 with which God deals in the apparently intricate 
 relations of men and nations, overrulin'.^ their 
 folly and their sins ; his knowledge, the com- 
 plete view which he has of all the free deter- 
 minations of men, whether as individuals or as 
 nations, a view necessary to the accomplish- 
 ment of his beneficent designs. — How un- 
 searchable are his judgments, and his 
 Avays past tracing out. His judgments in- 
 clude not merely his judicial determinations, but 
 his whole governmental administrations ; his 
 ways are the means by which this administration 
 is carried on. Or we may see in the latter, per- 
 haps, a figure of the progress of God in the his- 
 tory of mankind ; we see the results of his pres- 
 
 ence, but we can not trace his foot-prints with 
 nations or with individuals. " The wind bloweth 
 where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound 
 thereof, hut canst not tell whence it comcth, or 
 whither it goeth." — For who hath known, 
 etc. A reference to, if not a free quotation from, 
 the O. T. Scripture*, namely, Isaiah 40 : ly ; Job 
 35:7. — For, from him, and through him, 
 and to him are all things. From him pro- 
 ceeding, as from the great first cause of all ; 
 through him wrought, as the ever-present ruler 
 and administrator of mercy, as well as of justice ; 
 to him, because he is the end toward which all 
 events point, having their consummation only 
 when he is the all in aU, John 17:23; 1 Cor. 
 15 : 28 ; Eph. 1 : 23 : Col. 3 : 11. Alford, following 
 Origen, sees in this not a formal allusion to three 
 persons in the Trinity, but an implied reference 
 to the three attributes of Jehovah, as manifested 
 to us by the three co-equal and co-eteraal Per- 
 sons in the Godhead : — the Father, from whom 
 all things proceed, the Son, through whom all 
 things are done, and the Holy Spirit, in whom all 
 things have their life and divine harmony. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 PAUL'S 1>.\\V OF ETIIIfS. 
 
 I BESEECH you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living 
 sacrifice, holy, 'acceptable to God, which is your -reasonable ♦ 'service. And be not fashioned 
 according to this 'world : but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may 
 prove what is 'the good and 'acceptable and perfect will of God. 
 
 For I say, through tlio grace that was given me, to every man that is among you, not to 
 think of himself more highly than he ought to think ; but so to think as to think soberly, acconl- 
 ing as God hath dealt to each man a measure of faith. For even as we have many members in 
 one body, and all the members have not the same office : so we, who are many, are one body in 
 Christ, and severally members one of another. And having gifts differing according to the grace 
 that was given to us, whether prophecy, let ns prophesy according to the projiortion of "our faith ; 
 or ministry, let vs gire onrsehex to our ministry ; or he that teacheth, to his teaching ; or he that 
 eshorteth. to his exhorting : he that giveth, let him do it with 'liberality ; he that ruleth, with 
 diligence ; he that sheweth mercy, with cheerfulness. Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor 
 that which is evil ; cleave to that \vhich is good. In love of the brethren be tenderly affectioncd 
 one to another ; in honour preferring one another ; in diligence not slothful ; fervent in spirit ; 
 serving the Lord ; rejoicing in hope ; patient in tribulation ; continuing stedfastly in prayer ; 
 coHimuuicating to the necessities of the saints ; "given to hospitality. Bless theui that persecute 
 you ; bless, and curse not. Rejoice with them that rejoice ; weep with them that weep. Be of 
 the same mind one toward another. Set not your mind on high things, but "condescend to 
 "things that are lowly. Be not wise in your own conceits. Render to no man evil for evil. 
 Take thought for things honourable in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as in you 
 lieth. be at peace with all men. Avenge not yourselves, beloved, but give place unto '-'wrathj: 
 for it is written. Vengeance belongeth unto me ; I will recompense, saith the Lord. But if 
 thine enemy hunger, feed him ; if he thirst, give him to drink : for in so doing thou shalt heap 
 coals of fire upon his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. 
 
 1 Gr. wfll-pleaaing. 
 
 2 Or. spiritual. 
 
 * VoT " reaaonable" 
 read " spiritttal," 
 with inarK. Or. 
 beloiiRtitK to thti 
 reason .— A m . Com . 
 
 3 Or. unrship. 
 
 4 Or, agt. 
 
 5 Or, 'the will of 
 God. even f*<> 
 (Ai>ia which i» 
 good and accept- 
 able aud perfect. 
 
 6 Or, the /ailh.1 
 
 t Omit niarg. 9 (the 
 faith). — Am. Com. 
 
 7 Gr. singleness. 
 
 8 Some ancient au- 
 thorities read the 
 opportunity. 
 
 9 Gr. pursuing. 
 
 10 Or. be carried 
 away ivith. 
 
 11 Or, them. 
 
 12 Or, the utrath of 
 God. 
 
 t Letmarf;. 15("tAe 
 wrath of God") 
 and the text ex- 
 change places. — 
 Am. Com. 
 
 In this chapter Paul suggests what, in his view, is the basis of ethics, and in tliis ami 
 succeeding chapters, .^ets forth ethical obligations in some especial applications. 
 
 "What is the grouml of ethical obligation, is a question which has been hotly debated. 
 Some authors will have us believe that the general good is the foundation of general obliga- 
 tion, and that we are bound to do what is right, because righteousness produces the greatest 
 happiness of the greatest number. Some base moral obligation on the law of God, on the 
 necessity that we are under to do what we are bidden, and refrain from that which is for- 
 bidden, without questioning the reason for the command or the prohibition. Still others 
 regard right and wrong as ultimate facts which inhere in the nature of things, and indeiMl, 
 in the nature of God hint.'^elf, and ethical duty as consi.sting primarily in the ol>ligation 
 to obey these law.s, which are inherent and eternal. Paul, without discussing this sub- 
 ject at all, looks upon all ethical obligation from a totally different point of view. 
 Moral conduct is not, according to him, the product of conscious obedience to law, whether 
 divinely revealetl, or empirically discovered. Moral conduct is the fruit of spiritual 
 life. E.s.sential to true life is oneness with God ; and he who is at one with God will 
 po.s.sess a godly nature, and out of that nature will flow a godly life and conduct. In the 
 first chapter of Romans, Paul explains that immoral conduct has grown in society out 
 of departure from God, and that any attempt to make men moral by laws imposed from 
 without, while they are thus separated from Gotl, is wholly in vain, a truth which he expounds 
 and illustrates in the .second and third chapters. He then proceeds to show by argument from 
 Scripture, froui analogy, from life, and by apjit^al to exjxirience, that (JSod can, and will, and 
 
200 ROMANiS. [Ch. XII 
 
 does enter into the human heart, transform the hnniiin nature, and by his own persoTial 
 influence, conform the willing soul to himself and his will. This line of persuasive argu- 
 ment concludes with the conclusion of the eighth chapter. In the ninth, tenth, and 
 eleventh chapters, he shows that this grace of God is proffered to all men — Gentile as well 
 as Jew — and that in the doctrine of election, as held by the Jew, there is nothing inconsist- 
 ent with faith in a universal grace of God. In the twelfth chapter he comes to the practical 
 and ethical conclusion of his theology, this, namely : that as departure from God is the 
 cause of immorality, and as return to God is the only ground for a hope of true life, so out 
 of the life thus begotten in the soul, there springs up naturally and spontaneously right 
 conduct. "Consecrate, yourself," he says in effect, "to God ; be transformed by the renew- 
 ing of his personal indwelling ; then your life will show, what is the good, and acceptable, 
 and perfect will of God." The rest of the Epistle is spent in the main in practically illus- 
 trating what this good, acceptable, and perfect will of God is in human society. While it 
 may not be possible to cast his thoughts into a philosophical form, yet we may, for conven- 
 ience and without duly forcing his language, classify his specific illustrations in this 
 chapter under four general heads : 
 
 1. The standard of ethical obligation is furnished by the doctrine of the unity of the 
 race. Morality is organic. We are under obligation, one to another, because we are one 
 brotherhood ; because we are one body. The fatherhood of God involves the brotherhood 
 of man, and the universality of Christ's redemption brings not only the whole human race 
 to Avhich the offer of redemption has been made, into relations to him, but also, and as a 
 consequence, every member of that race into relations of mutual interdependence and moral 
 obligation to each other. Duty does not grow primarily out of this social relationship. It 
 grows primarily out of the I'elationship which each soiil bears to God as its father, Christ 
 as its redeemer, and the Holy Spirit as its life-giver ; but the relationship into which all 
 men are brought toward one another by redemption, furnishes the standard for the measure- 
 ments of moral obligation, though not the foundation on which moral obligation is based. 
 
 2. The relationship into Avhich we are thus brought to one another is one of mutual 
 .service, because it is one of mutual dependence. We constitute one organism. In this 
 organism each man's duty is to fulfill that function for which he is specially fitted. Every 
 man has some function, some Avork for which nature and education adapt him. This may 
 be spiritual teaching, or some form of serving, or intellectual education, or the arousing of 
 the emotions, or providing by industrial skill for the wants of the community, or executive 
 administration, or lessening the afflictions of life by the exercise of kindness and sympathy 
 and compassion. .First among every man's duties, then, is to ascertain for which work he 
 is fitted, and to do that work with single-heartedness. He has to run with patience the 
 race which has been set before him, wasting no time in repining because a different race 
 has not been allotted to him. 
 
 3. In this human brotherhood, this organism growing ovit of the redemption that is in 
 Christ Jesus, mutual love is the bond of union — love Avhich is without dissimulation, simple 
 and sincere ; love which is kindly affectioned and seeks another's honor rather than one's 
 own ; love which is hopeful, patient, trustful, open-hearted, sympathetic and free from 
 self-seeking and self-conceit. 
 
 4. Society is full of evil. How does the divine life prompt us to treat this evil ? As 
 Christ has treated evil. Not by punishment, but by redeeming love. Primarily, of course, 
 it forbids personal vengeance ; but this is not all. More than this is meant by Christ's 
 prohibition, " Resist not evil ; " more is meant by Paul's direction, " Be not overcome of 
 evil, but overcome evil with good." We al*e to deal with it not by a punitive, but by a 
 
Cu. XII. J R0MA:NS. 201 
 
 redciiiplivt' system. It is not mir luiKtidii ti) lU-al out justice to wrong-doers, nor primarily 
 to protect ourselves t'roiu them. As individually, so socially our prime duty is not to pro- 
 tect oui-selves from evil, still less to punisli the evil-tloer, but to overcome the evil by good. 
 This is the law lor individual action; it is equally the law lor social ailniinistration. As 
 love is to be the inspiration of our service, and love is to be the bond of our union, so 
 love, working by redemption, not justice working by punishment, is to be the weapon 
 with which we are to protect ourselves from evil, and, finally, to banish it altogether. 
 
 What the divine law of love will wurk out in us respecting government, is left to be 
 t onsidered I'n the next chapter. 
 
202 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 [Ch. XII. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 I BESEECH you therefore, brethren, by the mercies 
 of God, that ye present your bodies" a living sacri- 
 fice, holy, acceptable unto God, -which is your reason- 
 able service. 
 
 2 And be'' not conformed to this world: but be ye 
 
 transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye 
 may prove " what is that good, and acceptable, and 
 perfect, will of God. 
 
 3 For I say, through the grace given unto me, to 
 every man that is among you, not to think of himself 
 more highly'' than he ought to think; but to think 
 soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the 
 measure « of faith. 
 
 6 : 15-20 b 1 John 2 : U. 
 
 Eph. 5 : 10, n 1 ch. II : --'O. . . .e Eph. 4 : 7, etc. 
 
 Ch. 12. PAUL'S LAW OF ETHICS.— Moral life is pro- 
 duced BT SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE. — UNITY OF RACE 
 INVOLVES MUTUAL OBLIGATIONS. — TlLUSTF.ATIONS : SIN- 
 CERITY IN LOVK; DILIGENCE IN LIFE; CATHOLICITY IN 
 SYMPATHY; PEACE WHEN POSSIBLE. — OUR DUTY : NOT 
 TO AVENGE WRONG BUT TO CURE IT. 
 
 1-2. I beseech you therefore, brethren. 
 
 Literally, I call upon you. — By the mercies of 
 
 God. A suggestion of the highest motive, and 
 the most powerful, which can be brought to bear 
 upon men, namely, a perception and .ippreciation 
 of the divine mercy. — That ye present. The 
 word is the one used to designate the bringing of 
 the offering for sacrifice (Luke 2 : 22; comp. Coi. 1 : 22). 
 — Your bodies. "Not yourselves, but your 
 hodles, as opposed to the mind." — (Jowett.) Paul 
 has shown how the body is dead because of sin ; 
 and he now urges his readers to consecrate this 
 body to the service of God, making the body 
 itself alive because of righteousness. In accord- 
 ance with this interpretation of his teachings, 
 there are the following passages : chap. 8 : 11, 13 ; 
 1 Cor. 6 : 15, 19, 20 ; Eph. 5 : 23 ; 1 Thess. 5 : 23.— 
 A living sacrifice. In contrast with the sac- 
 rifices of the temple, which were slain. But 
 more than this is Implied ; we make our sacri- 
 fices to God, not by slaying or mutilating our 
 bodies, but by filling them with a new life and 
 consecrating them to a new service (John lo : 10). 
 —Holy, well-pleasing to God. Holy, in 
 biblical usage, signifies set apart from a com- 
 mon to a sacred use (Matt. 1:6; Acts 6 : 13). It is 
 this setting apart of one's self to God's serv- 
 ice which is well-pleasing to God, whether the 
 person or thing thus set apart be intrinsically of 
 great or of little value. — Which is your reas- 
 onable service. Not rational as opposed to 
 superstitious, but a service rendered by that 
 which is rational, in contrast with that rendered 
 by the sacrifices of animals, which have no 
 reason. Thus the Christian sacrifice differs in 
 two respects from that of the ancient Jewisli 
 ritual. It is a consecration, not a destruction, of 
 life ; and it is a consecration of that which is 
 possessed of, and dominated by. reason. — And 
 be not conformed to this Avorld. This 
 world in Jewish thought, as distinguished from 
 the world to come, is the time before as distin- 
 guished from the time after the Messiah. The 
 Christian belongs to a distinct kingdom, a king- 
 
 dom yet to come to its perfection, and he is not 
 to allow himself to be fashioned by, and according 
 to that in the world which is discordant with the 
 kingdom of Christ. How this is to be prevented 
 is indicated in the clause that follows. — But be 
 ye transformed by the renewing of your 
 mind. The mind is not here simply the intel- 
 lectual faculties, but the whole interior nature, 
 including emotions, affections, habits of thought, 
 purposes of the will, and that disjjosition out of 
 which all grows. This is to be made anew ; the 
 man i* to become a new creation, and therein and 
 thereby to be transformed in his whole outward 
 conduct and conversation (2 Cor. 5 : n ; Gai. 6 : 15). 
 — That you may prove. By actual experi- 
 ence. — What is that good and acceptable 
 and perfect will of God. That is, what is good 
 and acceptable to him and perfect. This is the 
 construction given by both Alford and Me3'er. 
 Observe that the will of God is to be, as it were, 
 investigated, ascertained, and determined on, not 
 by theological discussions (chap. 11 : 1), but by a 
 renewed nature, and a transformed life. 
 
 3-5. For I say, through the grace given 
 unto me. That is, as an Apostle by divine in- 
 spiration ; comp. chap. 15 : 15 ; 1 Cor. 3 : 10 ; 
 Eph. 3 : 7, 8. — To every one that is among 
 you. " None among you is to be exempt from 
 this exhortation." — [Meyer.) — In the directness 
 of his addresses, from which no one is allowed 
 to escape, the Apostle is a model for the modern 
 preacher. He does not write essays about 
 themes, he speaks directly to the individual. — 
 Not to think more highly, etc. " There is a 
 play on the words, which can only be clumsily 
 conveyed in another language ; not to be high- 
 minded above that which he ought to be minded, 
 but to be so minded as to be sober-minded."— 
 {Alford.) Excessive self-depreciation as well as 
 excessive self-praise is impliedly condemned by 
 the language of the Apostle. — As God has 
 distributed to each one the measure of 
 faith. This is the Pauline test of character. 
 Faith is not here distinctively faith in Christ; 
 nor equivalent to those gifts, or graces, which 
 the Christian can only receive through faith, an 
 interpretation which, as Alford well says, "is to 
 confound the receptive faculty with the thing 
 received by it, and to pass by the great lesson of 
 our verse, that this faculty is nothing to be proud 
 
(11. XII.] 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 203 
 
 4 For as we have many ' members in one body, and 
 all members have not the same office ; 
 
 5 So we, iit>iir many, are one body " in Christ, and 
 everv one members one ot another. 
 
 6 Havinjj then gifts diflTering >> according to the grace 
 that is given to us, whether prophecy, /<■/ us prophesy 
 according to the pro|K)rtion of faith ; 
 
 7 Or ministry, let us toait on o«r ministering ; or he 
 that teachcth, on teaching ; 
 
 8 Or he that cxiiortetii, on exhortation : ho that 
 giveth, /(•/ ///w <!(> /'/ with simplicity; he' that rulcth, 
 with diligence ; he that sheweth mercy, with chccrlul- 
 ness.' 
 
 p /,«■/ love be without dissimulation.'' Abhor' that 
 which is evil ; cleave to that which isgooil. 
 
 r I I'xr. I'.' : 4, H g Eph. 1 : S3 hi Pet. 4 : 10, 11 I Ps. 101 : 3, etc j 2 Cor. 9 : 7 .... k 1 Pet. 1 : S2 1 Pi. 34 : 14. 
 
 of, but God's gift." Faith is here, and everj'- 
 whcre in Paul's writings, the power of spiritual 
 insight, the power wliieii pereeives and receives 
 (iod. According to the divine life which God 
 iinjiarts is the capacity for work in that divine 
 life, in efficient service in the kingdom of God. 
 This is not the tnost common test of character, 
 even in the Church of Christ ; but it is Paul's 
 test always. — For even as we have many 
 members. The figure here suggested is worked 
 out much more fully in 1 Cor. 12 : lo-oO. — And 
 severally members one of another. That 
 is, we are severally necessary to each other's effi- 
 ciency in the Christian organism. No man can 
 measure his duty as though he stood alone ; he 
 must take into account the fact that he is a mem- 
 ber of a community, and the effect of his acts 
 on the community. Comp. chap. 14 : 7, 8. 
 
 G-8. Bat having gifts, etc. (charismata). 
 Concerning these gifts Paul writes at length in 
 1 Cor. chapters 12, 13, 14. Observe that in Paul's 
 estimate all powers employed in the divine life 
 are gifts of God. ComiL Matt. 2.5 : 14-30. These 
 gifts differ according to the grace given to us. 
 The possession of such a gift may be a cause for 
 thanksgi\ing, but never for boastfulness. — 
 Whether prophecy let us prophesy, ac- 
 cording to the proportion of our faith. 
 Prophecy, is not in Scrijjture usage, confined to 
 foretelling. It signifies speaking as a messenger 
 of God eomraunicatious received from him and 
 under the inspiration of his indwelling spirit. He, 
 then, who teaches spiritual truth must teach it 
 according to the measure of his own spiritual 
 experience of the truth ; what is not true in his 
 own spiritual experience, whatever evidence 
 there may be of it in the thoughts and writings 
 of others, is not a proper subject of his sjjiritual 
 teaching. He must always be able to say. We 
 also believe and therefore speak (>> Cor. 4 : 1.3). — 
 Or ministry, let us give ourselves to our 
 ministry. By ministry is intended the gift of 
 administration of external affairs of the Church, 
 ])articularly the care of the poor, the sick, and 
 stranirers. This work especially devolved upon 
 the deacons. — Or he that teacheth on his 
 teaching; or he that exhorteth to his ex- 
 liortation. No sharp line of distinction can be 
 drawn between prophesying, teaching, ami ex- 
 horting. Prophesying implies a more direct in- 
 
 spiration from God ; teaching and exhorting, an 
 obtaining of the truth more through secondary 
 instruments. I'rophccy, again, is more distinctly 
 the work of a seer revealing si)iritual truths; 
 teaching works by an instructor ijresenting it in 
 systematic forms ; exhortation indicates the work 
 of an emotional speaker a])plying it to the life. 
 Prophesying is characterized by the word inspir- 
 ing ; teaching, by the word instructive ; exhorting, 
 by the word arousing. Proi)heey speaks to the 
 imagination ; teaching, to the intellect ; exhorting, 
 to the emotions. But in all religious instruction 
 these three elements are more or less intermin- 
 gled, and generally indistinguishable. — He that 
 giveth, let him do it with singleness of 
 heart. " Not liberally, but in singleness of heart , 
 i. e., as unto the Lord, and not unto man ; with 
 no other thought than that of pure love." — 
 (Jowett.) — He that ruleth with diligence. 
 This ruling is the work of an administrator or 
 organizer in the Church. Comp. 1 Thess. .5 : 12 ; 
 1 Tim. 5 : 17. Success in this work requires con- 
 stant watchfulness, while on the other hand, 
 history says that the special temptation of a 
 ruler is to idleness ; assigning work to others, 
 rulers are tempted to cease working themselves. 
 — He that shoAveth mercy with cheerful- 
 ness. Ungrudgingly ; interpreted by the expres- 
 sion of Shakespeare. '' The ((uality of mercy is 
 not strained, but dropjx'th as the gentle dew 
 from heaven." The fundamental thought in all 
 these exhortations (verses e-s) is that e\ery man is 
 to give himself wholly to the work for which he 
 is fitted, or to which by the providence of God 
 he has been allotted, not seeking ambitiously for 
 some other jilaee, or some other service. 
 
 9-13. Let love be without hypocrisy. 
 A severe test of much of our courtesy, and a 
 condemnation of all that which does not repre- 
 sent a genuine feeling of good-will. — Abhor the 
 evil, cleave to the good. Genuine h)ve is 
 accordant, not inconsistent, with such abhorrence 
 of evil. See Eph. 4 : 14-2(i. Abhor and cleave to 
 are jmt in contrast, but are manifestations of the 
 same spirit, as electricity attracts and repels 
 with precisely the same force accordingly as the 
 object to which it is presented is charged with 
 the same or different currents.— In love of the 
 brethren, be tenderly attectioned one 
 with another. The brethren are, in the N. T. 
 
204 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 [Ch. XIL 
 
 10 Be kindly ^ affectioned one to another with broth- 
 erly love ; in honour preferring" one another ; 
 
 11 Not slothful in business;" fervenf in spirit; 
 serving! the Lord : 
 
 12 Rejoicing'' in hope; patient* in tribulation; con- 
 tinuing ' instant in prayer ; 
 
 13 Distributing " to the necessity of saints ; given to 
 hospitality.' 
 
 14 Bless" them which persecute you: bless, and 
 curse not. 
 
 15 Rejoice " with them that do rejoice, and weep with 
 them that weep. 
 
 16 i>Vy of the same mind one toward another. Mind^ 
 not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. 
 Be" not wise in your own conceits. 
 
 17 Recompense '' to no man evil for evil. Provide 
 things'^ honest in the sight of all men. 
 
 m 1 Pet. 2 : 17 n 1 Pet. 5:5 Acts 20 : 34, 35 p Col. 4 : 12 q Heb. 12 
 
 uPs. 41 : 1; Heb. 13 : 16....THeb. 13 : 2; 1 Pet. 4 : 9 w Matt. 5 : ( 
 
 alsa. 5:21 b Matt. 5:39; 1 Pet. 3: 9....C 2 Cor. 8: 21. 
 
 .X 1 Cor. 12 : 26. 
 
 .s James 1 : 4 t Luke 18 
 
 ...y 1 Pet. 3 : 8 z Jer. 45 
 
 usage, the fellow-members in the Christian 
 Church. The word rendered tenderly affectioned 
 implies closeness of family affection, like that 
 between parents and children. — In honor pre- 
 ferrini; one another. Either, in paying honor 
 anticipating one another, that is, making haste 
 to pay honor to others rather than to seek it for 
 ourselves — (Jowelt) ; or in point of moral conduct 
 going before others, as guides, inciting them to 
 follow. — (Meyer.) — In diligence not slothful. 
 Not as in the Old Version, nut .slothful in business, 
 a translation which makes the Apostle appar- 
 ently refer to secular affairs ; what he urges is, 
 that the Christian should not be wanting in 
 energy or action in outward life. — Fervent in 
 spirit. Literally, boiling in spirit. The one 
 clause indicates outward energy, the other inten- 
 sity of life within. — Serving the Lord. Some 
 manuscripts give instead, Serving the time, in 
 which case the meaning will be parallel to that 
 of Rom. 13 : 11, 13 ; Eph. 5 : 16 ; Col. 4 : 5.— 
 Rejoicing in hope. Better in the hope, that 
 is, making the hope of final redemption a cause 
 of joy, in the midst of present tribulation. 
 Comp. chap. 8 : 24, 25 ; 15 : 3.— Patient in 
 tribulation. The Greek word rendered pa- 
 tient, signifies to remain under tribulation ; this 
 spirit of patience in tribulation is a spirit which 
 is content to remain in it as contrasted with that 
 which anxiously seeks to escape from it.^ — Con- 
 tinuing steadfastly in prayer. The meaning 
 of the Greek will be indicated to the English 
 reader by referring to Mark 3 : 9, where it is 
 rendered to wait on. Tbe disciple is exhorted to 
 wait patiently upon God, as a child waits for his 
 father's time to grant the request. Comp. Acts 
 1:14; 2:42, 46.— Communicating to the 
 necessities of the saints. More literally, 
 Sharing in common, making them in their neces- 
 sities participators in our goods. — Pursuing 
 hospitality. Not merely receiving those who 
 seek hospitality, but seeking them and urging it 
 upon them ; "a virtue highly important at that 
 time, especially in the case of traveling, and per- 
 haps banished and persecuted Christian breth- 
 ren. ' ' — {3feyer.) 
 
 14-16. Bless them which persecute you, 
 bless and curse not. To bless is to invoke 
 God's blessing upon, to curse is to invoke God's 
 
 curse upon ; for illustration of the blessing of 
 persecutors, see Luke 23 : 34 ; and for illustration 
 of cursing, where Paul did not act according to 
 his own precepts, see Acts 23 : 3. This precept 
 seems to me conclusively to show, that what are 
 called the Imprecatory Psalms are not models 
 for the Christian imitation ; in the moral devel- 
 opment of the race David precedes Paul. David 
 refuses to revenge himself on his enemies, but 
 invokes vengeance upon them ; Paul, following 
 the example and instruction of the Master, for- 
 bids the spirit which desires vengeance to be in- 
 flicted upon them. — Rejoice with them that 
 do rejoice, etc. There is no good reason for 
 the attempt to connect these several clauses, 
 they are distinct. This one emphasizes the duty 
 of cultivating sympathy, which is itself a product 
 of love. — Be of the same mind one toward 
 another. "This characterizes the loving har- 
 mony, when each in respect to his neighbor, has 
 one and the same thought and endeavor ; comp. 
 15 : 5 ; Phil 2 : 3 ; 4 : 2 ; 2 Cor. 13 : 11."— (J%er. ) 
 This spirit would prevent all class distinctions in 
 the Church, whether between rich or poor, or be- 
 tween ecclesiastic or layman ; in love and sym- 
 pathj' they are to have the same spirit towards 
 one another. — Mind not high things, but be 
 led away by things that are lowly. Not 
 without reason does Paul use the singular word 
 (at!) x(7r«}'')'((j>(j/), to be led away with; as we are 
 ordinarily led away by the things that are ex- 
 alted, so he bids us to be led away by the things 
 which are lowlj', as Christ was drawn in an espe- 
 cial manner to the poor and the needy. — Be not 
 wise in your own conceits. See chap. 11 r 
 25 ; 2 Cor. 11 : 19 ; Prov. 3 : 7 ; 26 : 12 ; literally, 
 wise before yourself, that is, in your own judg- 
 ment, you being the judge. Confidence in one's 
 convictions and courage in maintaining them, 
 does not depend upon one's judgment of himself 
 that he is pre-eminently wise. Such judgment 
 closes the mind and heart against others, and for- 
 bids the sympathy which in the preceding clauses 
 the Apostle has urged upon his readers. 
 
 17-21. Give back to no one evil in return 
 for evil. This seems to introduce a new thought, 
 which continues to the end of the chapter. 
 Comp. Matt. 5 : 43-48. The lex talionis, rude even 
 as a standard of justice, is absolutely forbidden 
 
('II. xn.i 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 205 
 
 i8 If it be possible, as mucli as lietli in you, live 
 peaceably ■" with all men. 
 
 iq Dearly beloved, avenRC not yourselves; but 
 rather give place unto wrath : for It is written, \'cnge- 
 ance ' is mine ; 1 will repay, saith tlie Lord. 
 
 20 Therefore if thine* enemy hunger, teed him; if 
 he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt 
 heap coals of lire on his head. 
 
 21 Be'' not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with 
 good. 
 
 d Ps. 34 : 14 ; Heb. 12 : 14 e Lot. 19 : 18 f Dent. 3J : 35 g Prov. 45 : 21, 22; M»U. 5 : 44 h Prov. 16 : 32. 
 
 as the rule for individual conduct by Chi-istian I 
 priiKipli'.— Provide in the si;;lit of all men 
 sncli thinsts as are honorable. I'roviili' must 
 hiTu must taken in its etymological sense as in- j 
 volving foreseeing, carinj,- for beforehand ; the 
 phrase, In the sight of all men, qualifies the 
 "verb, as in the rendering given above. Human 
 judgment is not made the measure of what is 1 
 good, beautiful and true, but we are bid to take 
 heed beforehand for what is good, beautiful, and 
 true, so that our life shall be patent as a godly 
 life before all men. Comp. Matt. 5 : 14-1(). Paul's 
 language here is supposed to have been suggested 
 by, if not freely quoted from, Prov. 3:4; and 
 the clause there, " In the sight of God,'' is added 
 in some manuscripts to the text here. — If it be [ 
 possible, as niiicli as lieth in you, be at 
 peace with all men. Not merely live peace- 
 ably. To he at peace signifies the disposition of 
 the mind. The qualifications are important ; it 
 is not always possible to be at peace with others ; 
 first pure, then peaceable (James 3 : n), is the uni- 
 versal law of Christian character and conduct, 
 but " all your part is to be at peace ; whether 
 you actually live peaceably or not will depend 
 then solely on how others behave toward you." 
 — Dearly beloved. The more difficult this 
 duty the more affectionately does the Apostle 
 address his readers with these words. — (Tholuck.) 
 — Avenge not yourselves. Literally, and so 
 I believe it is to be taken here, do not do justice 
 to, maintain the right of, undertake to vindicate, 
 yourself. For the construction and application 
 of t Ids principle, see Matt, h : 8-48, and note there. 
 Christianity does not forbid the desire for justice 
 or self-vindication, but it requires that men should 
 leave their own vindication to others who are 
 disinterested, and pre-eminently to God. — But 
 jfive place unto wrath. Three interpreta- 
 tif)iis of this phrase have been afforded : (1) In- 
 terpose delay to anger, [jroceed not to execute it 
 hastily, but leave it for its legitimate time ; (2) 
 Make room for the wrath of God, and leave 
 your vindication to him ; (3) Make room for the 
 wrath of your enemy, let him hav(! his way, 
 do not resist him or the evil which he seeks 
 to inflict on you. Alford maintains the first, 
 Meyir the second, Jowett the third. This last 
 seems more consonant with the general .--pirit of 
 the (jospel, especially of that portion of the 
 
 Sermon on the Mount from which we may well 
 
 believe Paul borrowed the spirit of his instruc- 
 tion here. In that case, Paul's exhortation is 
 equivalent to Christ's, " resist not evil." — For it 
 is written. The quotation is from Deut. 32 : 
 o5, but is not exact. Comp. Hebrews 10 : MO. — 
 Venueance is mine, I will repay, saitli the 
 Lord. Hy vengeance we are not to understand 
 the gratitieation of revenge, but the administra- 
 tion of justice, especially retributive jusliee, in 
 the infliction of punishment for wrong-doing. 
 This is entirely clear in the original. — There- 
 fore if thineenemy hunger, feed him, * * * 
 for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of 
 lire on his head. These words are quoted 
 from Prov. 2^ : 21, 22. Various interpretations 
 have been given of them, as : (I) So thou wilt 
 overwhelm him with shame and remorse ; (2) 
 Thou wilt add to the divine condemnation of him, 
 for ingratitude will be added to his crime ; (3) 
 Thou wilt melt and soften him, as fire melts and 
 softens iron. It appears to me better to un- 
 derstand Paul's phrase as generally equivalent to 
 the modern sentiment derived from Christianity, 
 that the generous treatment of an enemy is a 
 noble revenge. It is as if the Apostle had said, 
 the way to revenge yourself on your enemy is 
 to do him a kindness. If we take this literally 
 and endeavor to discover how doing him a kind- 
 ness will gratify that spirit of revenge which we 
 ought not to gratify, but crucify, we totally mis- 
 apply not only the Apostle's meaning, but his 
 essential spirit. — He not conquered of evil, 
 but conquer evil by v:ood. As in many other 
 cases, the specific exhortation leads up here to a 
 broad and general principle. Emphasis in the 
 l)receding part of the chapter has been laid upon 
 the negative clause. Be not conquered by evil ; 
 but this direction can be complied with oidy by 
 those who etpiip themselves with good, that they 
 may thereby conquer the evil. This is the law 
 of all Christian reform. In this sentence, the 
 Apostle returns to the same prineii)le enunciated 
 in the commcrnccment of the chapter: Be not 
 conformed to this world, but be ye transformed 
 by the renewing of your mind. There the prin- 
 ciple is ap|)lied to the combat of evil, within us 
 individually, here to the combat of evil without 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN STATE. 
 
 Let every soul be in subjection lo tlie higher powers : for there is no power but of God ; and 
 the potvers that be are ordained of God. Therefore he that resisteth the power, withstandeth 
 the ordinance of God : and they that withstand shall receive to themselves .iudgement. For 
 rulers are not a terror to the good work, but to the evil. And wouldest thou have no fear of the 
 power ? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise from the same : for 'he is a minister 
 of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid ; for 'he beareth not the 
 Bword in vain : for he is a minister of God, an avenger for wrath to him that doeth evil. 
 Wherefore ye must needs be in subjection, not only because of the wrath, but also for conscience, 
 sake. For for this cause ye pay tribute also ; for they are ministers of God's service, attending 
 continually upon this very thing. Render to all their dues : tribute to whom tribute is due ; 
 custom to whom custom ; fear to whom fear ; honour to whom honour. 
 
 Owe no man any thing, save to love one another : for he that loveth -his neighbour hath 
 fulfilled ^the law. For this, Thou shall not commit adultery. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt 
 not steal. Thou shalt not covet, and if there be any other commandment, it is summed up in 
 this word, namely. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neigh- 
 bour : love therefore is the fulfilment of =the law. 
 
 And this, knowing the season, that now it is high time for you to awake out of sleep : for 
 now is 'salvation nearer to us than we frsi believed. The night is far spent, and the day is at 
 hand : let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. 
 Let us walk honestly, as in the day ; not in revelling and drunkenness, not in chambering and 
 wantonness, not in strife and jealousy. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not 
 provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof. 
 
 2 Gr. tlie other. 
 
 3 Or. law. 
 
 4 Or, our salvation 
 nearer thanioUen, 
 etc. 
 
 Ill tlie thirteenth chapter of Romans, Paul treats of the foundation of the State. I 
 propo.se in this chapter to indicate briefly the principles which he here inculcate;?, with 
 their application to our own times and questions. 
 
 What is the basis of the State ? What is the ground of its authority ? What right has 
 it to regulate or prohibit ? Its range is practically unbounded. Even in a free State there 
 is no ajjparent limit to its authority. It declares what may, and what must, and what must 
 not be done. It prohibits acts in themselves innocent ; it performs acts which, exce]3t its 
 authority is a just one, are acts of indefensible despotism. What more innocent than to take 
 a letter for a neighbor, either for a compensation or without one? But government forbids 
 the carriage of letters by private individuals under severe penalty. What is clearer than 
 Naboth's right t(j the vineyard which he has inherited from his father? But government 
 takes it from him for a railroad, and pays him what it judges right, not what he asks for it. 
 What is clearer than a man's right to his life, liberty, and pursuit of hai^piness? But in the 
 time of war government lays its hand upon him, takes him from his peaceful avocations, 
 and compels hini to go into battle to be shot at, and to leave his wife and child to be 
 supported by the government, or possibly to come into want for lack of support. And the 
 conscience of nearly the entire community supports the authority of government in these acts : 
 in prohibiting things innocent in themselves; in taking the individual's property for a public 
 use : in compelling him to lay down his life for the State. Where does it get this authority? 
 In what consists the sacredness of law ? Why should we be loyal to our government ? What 
 reason is there, what foundatidii, fi>r this demand of government on the one hand, and this 
 
Cii. Xlll.J KUMA.NS. 207 
 
 obedience to it on the other I Sliylock invokes the law of Venice to wreak a cruel venge- 
 ance on his foe. In vain Bassiinio implores the fair yonng judge to wrest the law : 
 
 " To do a jireat right, do a littlo wrong, 
 And curb this crufl devil of his will." 
 
 Portia replies : 
 
 " It must not he ; there i.s no power in Venice 
 Can alter a deeree established." 
 
 "VMiy must it not be ? What saeredness is tliere in law which can forbid the judge to wrest 
 it to his authority, that it become not the means of an inju.stice ? 
 
 Does the poiver of the government give it its authority? But miglit does not make 
 right ; and whatever may be true of despotic governments who.se decrees are enforced l)y a 
 standing army, niiglit does not even make power in a free State. Tliere is no might in the 
 ^layor of a city, the Governor of a State, (jr the President of the United States, except that 
 which is lodged in the con.seience of the people. His power lies in their sanction and 
 support ; their sanction and support do not lie in his power. Deprive him of their con- 
 science, and his power is gone ; he is scepterle.ss. 
 
 Is it in a compact, an agreement, an imaginary covenant, by wliicli the people of the 
 State have consented to lay aside something of their individual liberty for the greater good 
 which grows out of a political organization ? No such com})act was ever made. There is 
 no history of a time when men came together and formed a partnership or agreement to be 
 a State. Government is as old as humanity. Organism is as old as individualism. One 
 might as well say that in the individual the head has promised to do the thinking if the 
 stomach will do the digesting, and the stomach has undertaken to do the digesting if the 
 heart will supply the blood-current.s. The head and stomach and heart are parts of the 
 living organism ; so every individual man is a part of a living organism. Men are born 
 into the State as they are born into the world ; and are as much under social, political, and 
 industrial laws as under pliysical and natural laws. Social life is as old as life; government 
 is as old as man. 
 
 Paul, entering into no discu.ssion of these and rival hypotheses invented to account for 
 the State, perhaps knowing nothing of them, declares the true basis of law to be God. There 
 is no power but of God ; the powers that be are ordained of God ; he that setteth himself 
 in array against law, the Stiite, social order, sets himself against GckI. Loyalty to law, 
 government, the State, .social order is allegiance to God. The State is as truly a divine 
 institution as the Church or the Family. It is impo.ssible that life should go on without 
 the.se three institutions, all of which are established by God and are as old as the race. 
 There can be no sj^iritual life without the Church, no alfectional life without the Family, 
 no indu.strial life without the State. 
 
 If ever there was a time when Nihilism would have been justifiable, it Wiis in the lirst 
 century of the Chri.stian era. The Roman government was an absolute and untempered 
 despotism. The Emperors were at once the creatures and the absolute commanders of the 
 army. They were responsible to no one. They ilid not fear public o])inion within the 
 State, for it had no method of expressing itself, even if it hail exi.sted ; and it did not exist, 
 for the cruel Emperors were but too faitliful interpreters of the age. They feared no public 
 opinion without the State, for their Empire ruled the world. The healthy influence which 
 the public opinion of one modern State has upon another was unknown. Tiiey feared the 
 gods as little as they feared men ; for tlie gods were only deified Empemrs, and deiuanded 
 neither niercy, jjurity, nor ju.stice of their .subject.s. The horrors of a government so abso- 
 lute that one Emperor prolonged one of the hideous shows after the victims provided for it 
 
208 K0MAN8. [Ch. A'III. 
 
 had been slain, by ordering his servants to pick out men ana women from the audience and 
 throw them over into the arena to be destroyed by the wild beasts, can not be imagined. 
 It was at such a time that Paul wrote, " Let every soul be subject to the higher powers ; 
 for the poAvers that be are ordained of God. Mliosoever, therefore, setteth himself against 
 the power resisteth the ordinance of God." 
 
 We are living in an age when Nihilism, aiming not at the reconstruction of society, 
 but at its destruction, is rife. Under different aliases, as Fenianism, Communism, Anarch- 
 ism, Nihilism, it threatens social order in every civilized State. This blind Samson lays 
 hold on the two pillars of society — the Church and the State — and bows himself, not with 
 prayer, but with imprecation, that he may involve every one, himself included, in the 
 overthrow of all social organism. This spirit of lawlessness, breaking forth in the orgies 
 of the Commune in Paris, in the anti-draft riots in New York City, in the railroad ri(jts, in 
 the emeute in Cincinnati, breaks forth with minor manifestations in incipient rowdyism in 
 all our large towns and cities, and in the wild and lawless outrages upon the border.- It is 
 not a mere resistance to the power and majesty of law, and to the will of the majority, 
 or to the welfare of the community. It is all this; but it is more. It is lawlessness in 
 battle array against God. It finds its legitimate expression in the proposition of the French 
 Communist that it is necessary to abolish God. In such an age we need to restate and 
 restiidy the fundamental principles of law and order. At the basis of them all is the truth 
 that government is a divine ordinance. It is not a necessary evil ; it is an essential good. 
 It may be a bad government, and still it is better than none. For the worst government is 
 better than the best anarchy ; the worst law is more tolerable than lawlessness. For gov- 
 ernment and law are of God ; but anarchy and lawlessness are of the devil. 
 
 Is there, then, no Higher Law ? Is the conscience of the community to take the place 
 of the conscience of the individual ? Is the Friend, who believes that the law of God 
 forbids all war, to submit to the draft, lay his conscience aside, and become a soldier, in 
 spite of God's law and his own conscience 1 Is the Christian philanthropist, who believes 
 that the law of Christ commands him to give succor to the suffering, food to the hungry, 
 and deliverance to the oppressed, to lay his conscience aside, trample under foot Christ's 
 law, and join the baying hounds in their hunt tor the fleeing slave ? God forbid. Congress 
 is not God. Washington is not Mount Sinai. 
 
 But to disobey a specific law is one thing ; to set one's self in array against Law is a 
 very different thing. This last is Nihilism, lawlessness, anarchy ; and it is this last which 
 Paul alone condemns. As in many other passages, the best interpreter of Paul's meaning is 
 the original language in which he expressed his meaning : "Let every soul," he says, "be 
 under the higher powers." "Whosoever sets himself in array against the power opposes 
 God's order." Daniel was subject to the powers that be when he openly disobeyed the 
 ordinance forbidding prayer — and submitted to the penalty. The Apostles submitted to 
 the powers that be when they received without murmuring the stripes and imprisonments 
 inflicted upon them for preaching the Gospel of Christ — and continued to preach as before. 
 Christ submitted to the powers that be when he bade Peter put xip his sword, and told him 
 that he could call on legions of angels for his rescue, but yielded himself to death, though 
 neither threats nor blandishments could induce him while he lived to yield himself to 
 silence. The Friend who paid the fine or submitted to the imprisonment, but refused to 
 fight ; the Abolitionist who paid the penalty of his Christian hospitality to the fugitive 
 slave, but refused to help hunt him down, submitted to the powers that be. The rioters in 
 New York who attempted to prevent the draft, the little band of Abolitionists who followed 
 
Ch. XIIL] ROMANS. 209 
 
 John Brown in his wild attempt to arouse insurrection, set themselves in army aj^'iiinrit tli(» 
 ]iowers that be, and in so doing opposed tlie order of God himself. 
 
 Is, then, an evil and corrupt government never to be changed? Is all revolution 
 inexcusivble ? Are we to rank William of Orange and Cromwell and Washington with evil- 
 doers \ No ! Setting one's self against law, order, government, the social organism, and 
 endeavoring to change law, order, government, the social organism, are very different things. 
 They are different in the ends sought ; in the means employed ; in the spirit embodied. 
 One is anarchy, the other is revolution. The one is an attempt to turn the social creation 
 back into chaos again; the other is an attempt to carry it forward to a more perfect 
 development. 
 
 The declaration that the powers that be are ordained of God is not equivalent to the 
 declaration that they are administered in a divine way, or are organized upon a divine 
 pattern, or are working out divine ends. The common rose-bush in my garden is a divine 
 organism ; but I am going to bud it with a new and better variety of rose. The Family is 
 divine ; but does any reader know any family that has reached the divine ideal I The 
 Church is divine; but churches are very human, and need reforming, and even transform- 
 ing. So the State is a divine organism ; a part of God's order ; an embodiment, in part, of 
 God's purpose for the human race. But every state is human, and full of human infirmi- 
 ties ; and changes which preserve law, order, government, the social organism, are n(jt godless, 
 nor anarchical, however widely they may depart from tlie types and forms most conmion. 
 The government, let us say in Russia, is divine ; that is, its powers are ordained of God. 
 It does not follow^ however, that the Tsar will resist or set at naught the order or will of 
 God, if he should change the government and establish a Russian Parliament after the type 
 of the Engli.sh Parliament, and make the ministers of the State responsible to it. Neither 
 if the people of Russia are able to change the government, and to compel the Tsar to grant 
 a Parliament in which the popular will can find expression, and by which the popular will 
 can be executed, will the people of Russia set themselves against the order or will of Go<l. 
 They would not be setting themselves against law, or order, or government, or the social 
 organism, but only setting themselves to improve them. The fathers of the American 
 nation in their war against Great Britain did not set themselves against law, or order, or 
 government, or the social organism ; they set them.selves to constitute a society which should 
 better accord w-ith and better interpret the will of God. Luther was not an ecclesiastical 
 Nihilist, Voltaire was ; Lafayette was not a political Nihilist, Robespierre was. 
 
 At the time when Paul wrote, there was no possibility that the Christians, by either 
 peaceful or revolutionary measures, could improve the character of the Roman government. 
 They had but one alternative ; they could either submit to it, and be good citizens of a 
 l>ad government, or they could be riotous and revolutionary, a continual disturbance and 
 menace to such order as did exist, without contriV)uting any thing to the improvement 
 of that order. And Paul counseled them to the former course. The coun.sel embodies an 
 eternal truth. If government is wrong, change it if you can. If it commands of you 
 Avrong-doing, disobey and submit to the penalty. But whether it be of the State, the 
 school, the Church, or the household, however wrong it may be, however evil in form or 
 administration, be not lawless and anarchical ; .set not yourself in array against such law 
 and order as exists. For law and order are a part of God's economy of human life ; and he 
 whose influence is .set against them arrays himself against the divine order of society, the 
 .order of God, which embraces in it these three divine institutions — the Family, the Churcli, 
 and the State. 
 
210 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 [Ch. XllL 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 LET every soul be subject = unto the higher powers. 
 For there '• is no power but of God : the powers 
 that be are ordained of God. 
 
 2 Whosoever tiierefore resisteth the power, resistetli 
 the ordi nance of God : and tliey that resist shall receive 
 to themselves damnation. 
 
 3 For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to 
 the evil. Wilt thou then not be airaid of the power ? 
 do "^ that which is good, and thou shall have praise of 
 the same : 
 
 4 For he is the minister of God to thee for good. 
 But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid ; for he 
 beareth not the sword in vain : for he is the minister of 
 God, a revenger to exec7ite wrath upon him that doeth 
 evil. 
 
 5 Wherefore ^ ye must needs be subject, not only for 
 wrath, but also lor conscience sake. 
 
 6 For. for this cause pay ye tribute also: for they 
 are God's ministers, attending continually upon this 
 very thing. 
 
 7 Render therefore to all ^ their dues : tribute to whom 
 tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to 
 whom fear ; honour to whom honour. 
 
 a 1 Pet. 2 : 13. 14. ... b Dan. 2 : 21 . 
 
 1 Pet. 2 : 14. . . .d Eccles. 8 : 2 e Matt. 22 : 21. 
 
 Ch. 13. THE CHRISTIAN LAW OP GOVERNMENT.— 
 Government is not a human compact, but a 
 divinely appointed organism. — nihilism is worse 
 than despotism. — a bad government is better 
 
 THAN NONE. — The DUTIES OP SUBJECTS DEFINED. — 
 LoVE THE ESSENCE OP ALL GOOD LAW.— HoPE THE 
 INSPIRATION OF LIFE. 
 
 1-3. Let every soul be subject unto the 
 higher powers. Literally, Subject himself, i. e., 
 "be subject of his own freewill or accord." — 
 (Alford.) — For there is no power but from 
 God; those that are, are ordained of God. 
 These two clauses are not exactly repetitions. 
 The first states a general principle, the second 
 applies it specifically to existing governments. 
 The language does not imply that the i^ersons 
 who constitute existing governments are com- 
 missioned by God, nor that the forms of govern- 
 ment are arranged by him ; but, as Chrysostom in- 
 terprets it, that the magisterial office, the function 
 of government, is instituted by God ; and that, 
 therefore, the Christian is not to set himself 
 against the existing forms of government, by 
 methods involving their destruction. His right 
 to change them either in \)a&\x ■permnnel or in their 
 structure is not under consideration. — So that 
 he who arrays liimself against the power 
 arrays himself against the ordinance of 
 God. There is a play here upon the words which 
 can not be transferred into English. The word 
 rendered ordained and the word rendered resist 
 in our English version are different forms of the 
 same Greek word, the one affirmative, the other 
 negative. We might give some hint of this play 
 upon words by rendering thus : The powers that 
 be are placed by God ; whosoever, therefore, dis- 
 placeth the power displaceth the placing of God. 
 —Shall receive condemnation. Not eternal 
 punishment, but " the temporal punishment 
 which God causes to be inflicted by means of 
 magistrates."— (J/eyer, A{ford.)—Tor rulers are 
 not a terror to srood works, but to the 
 evil. This is not a statement of the fact as to 
 all existing rulership, but of the general ten- 
 dency of civil government. Even the worst 
 government is better than none at all, and re- 
 strains more evil than it perpetrates.— Do ^ood 
 
 and thou shalt have praise of the samer 
 
 This again is the enunciation of a general princi- 
 ple to which there have doubtless been many 
 exceptions. The whole passage is to be read in 
 light of the fact that the early Christians were 
 liable to think that their allegiance to Christ as 
 their king released them from allegiance to earthly 
 and civil authorities. Tholuck sees in Paul's 
 language here an indication that the Epistle to 
 the Romans was written before the commence- 
 ment of the Neronian persecution. 
 
 1-7. He is the servant of God to thee for 
 good, etc. "Is the Apostle speaking of rulers 
 of this world as they are or as they ought to be ? 
 Of neither ; but of the feeling with which the 
 Christian is to regard them. In general, he will 
 be slow to think evil of others ; in jjarticular, of 
 rulers. His temper will be that of submission 
 and moderation. He will acknowledge that al- 
 most any government is tolerable to the man 
 who walks innocently, and that the governments 
 of mankind in general have more of right and 
 justice in them than the generality of' men are 
 apt to suppose. And lastly, he M'ill feel that 
 whatever they do, tliey are in the hands of God, 
 who rules among the children of men ; and in 
 general, that his relations to them, like all the 
 relations of Christian life, are to God also. — 
 (Juwett.) — Ye must needs be subject, etc. 
 There is a double necessity. Submission is en- 
 forced not only by punishment which govern- 
 ment can inflict, but also by conscience imposing 
 the moral obligation of obedience. Parallel to 
 this is Isaiah's declaration, "Out of Zion sliallgo 
 forth the law," Isaiah 2 : 3. — For this cause 
 ye pay tribute also. The fact is here stated 
 illustratively. The command follows in the 
 next verse. — For they (the tax-collectors) are 
 God's officers. One must bear in mind the in- 
 tense and pardonable hostility to tax-gatherers 
 in all Roman provinces to appreciate the force of 
 Paul's declaration here. — Render, therefore, 
 to all their dues; tribute to Avhom tribute, 
 etc. The various clauses of this verse can not be 
 too closely pressed. They are used that Paul* 
 may cover, by specific illu--trations, all the func- 
 tions of government ; but Alford's discrimination 
 
C'H. A I II. 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 211 
 
 8 Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: 
 (or he' that lovetli another hath fulfilled the law. 
 
 9 For this, Thou « shalt not commit adultery. Thou 
 shiilt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Tliou shalt not bear 
 false witness. Thou shalt not covet ; and if therr be any 
 other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this 
 saying, namely, Thou '■ shalt love thy neighbour as thy- 
 self. 
 
 10 Love workclh no ill to his neighbour: therefore 
 love is the fulhlling ol the law. 
 
 11 And that, knowing the time, that now // is high 
 tmie lo awake ' out of sleep : lor now is our salvation 
 nearer than when we believed. 
 
 12 The night is far spent, the day is at hand : let us J 
 therelore cast oil the works of darkness, and let us 
 put'' on the armour of light. 
 
 f JsDies : : 8 . . . . g Ezod. SO : 13, etc.. . . h Lev. 19 : 18 ; Matt. 42 . »9, 40 . . . i 1 Thess. 5 : B-8 . . . . j Eph. 5 : 11 ... .k Eph. 6 : 13, tXx. 
 
 m;iy be accepted probably as substantially accu- 
 rate. Tribute is direct payment for state pur- 
 poses, levied on persous and property ; ciiiito/n is 
 a toll levied on goiids. Fear is perhaps indicative 
 of the regard paid to a lower official ; honor, that 
 jiaid to those higher iu the official scale. The 
 general principle involved in the comraaud is 
 clearly applicable to our own times. In a free 
 republic the power of the i)eople comes from 
 God, and allegiance is due to the government and 
 respect to public officials, because the govern- 
 ment and those who administer it, are rcj^re- 
 sentatives, however imperfect, of the divine order 
 and the divine law. Corap. Malt. 22 : 21. 
 
 8-10. Owe no mail any thing, but to love 
 one another. As is common with Paul, and 
 with every one who lives on so high a plane, and 
 regards life always iu the light of eternity, spe- 
 cific moralities grow out of eternal principles, 
 and lead back to eternal principles again. Thus, 
 by a natural though not a logical connection, the 
 direction of the preceding verse, to pay all that 
 one owes to government, leads on to the direc- 
 tion of this verse to pay all debts save those alone 
 of love, which never can be paid. For love par- 
 takes of the nature of God, and is an infinite 
 obligation. — For lie that loveth another, 
 hath fulfilled the law. It will perhaps strike 
 the reader as curious that, in this declaration and 
 in the amplification of it in the two succeeding 
 verses, Paul says nothing concerning duty toward 
 God, so that if he were taken literally, it would 
 seem as though the law, as he understands it, 
 requires nothing but love as an ethical standard 
 lived up to in human relations. Nor are we, I 
 think, to reconcile this with Paul's teachings 
 elsewhere ; and with the empha>is which Christ 
 l)Uts on a 6U])reme love to God, by saying with 
 John tliat we can not love our fellow-men unless 
 we love God. In this chaiiter Paul is dealing 
 only with human relations, and witli tlic duties 
 which grow out of them. All these duties are 
 summed up in the one word, love, because tlic 
 end of all duty as enforced by law is the protec- 
 tion of the individual ; and where love is regnant 
 the individual is protected because love worketli 
 no ill to his neighbor. But the obligation of love 
 to one's neighbor, Paul has already shown to be 
 based upon our obliiration to (iod. 
 
 11-14. And that Knowing the time. 
 
 From love Paul passes naturally on to hope, for 
 his face was always set toward the future. The 
 time is here equivalent to the cpwh. By it Paul 
 means the period between the Resurrection of 
 Christ and his Second Coming. That Paul be- 
 lieved that this epoch would be of short dura- 
 tion, and that the kingdom of God would imme- 
 diately appear, as certainly the twelve disciples 
 did (Luke 19 : 11), seems to me very clear from his 
 language here and elsewhere ; but it may not un- 
 reasonably be taken as an evidence of his inspira- 
 tion, that with this expectation, and with his 
 ardent temperament, he nowhere falls into the 
 error of asserting dogmatically the time of the 
 Second Coming of Clirist, nor even that the in- 
 tervening epoch will be a brief one. We can see 
 clearly that this is his opinion, but he does not 
 assert it as a jiart of his dogmatic teaching. — To 
 awake out of sleep. Meyer and Alford both 
 regard sleep here as indicating the moral careless- 
 ness and indifference which a(*coinpanies the 
 works of darkness. I should rather think there 
 is ill it a tacit reference to the coming of the 
 bridegroom, as i)ictured in Matt. 25 : 6-12, prior 
 to which all the virgins are portrayed as sleep- 
 ing. Paul conceives of the day of the Lord as 
 close at hand, and urges that as a special reason 
 for being alert to meet him. In Paul's writing! 
 his exhortations are liased not upon the short- 
 ness of the individual life, but upon the shortness 
 of the time which will elapse before the King 
 will come in his glory. — Nearer than when we 
 believed. That is, Jn-.v^ believeil. Christians are 
 apt to be widest awidce immediately upon con- 
 version, and then fall back into a sluggish state. 
 Paul makes the approaching nearness of the day 
 of the Lord a rea.-^on for continually increasing 
 watchfulness. — Let ns therefore cast oil the 
 works of darkness, and let ns put on the 
 armor of light. ^Ve shall force Paul's language 
 if we attempt to make of his phrase liere a con- 
 sistent figure of one jiutting off the dress of the 
 night-time and [mtting on the dress of the day- 
 time. The English version gives aright the sig- 
 nificance of the verb which it renders to caxt off; 
 I'aul indicates the indign:mt rejection of the 
 works that belong to the realm of darkness. On 
 the other hand, tfw armor of lUjht is not merely 
 clothing fitted for day ; it is armor. In that 
 lumino-iiy of character which comes from the 
 
312 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 [Ch. XIII. 
 
 13 Let us walk honestly,' as in the day ; not in 
 rioting" and drunkenness, not in chambering" and 
 wantonness, not in strife and envying. 
 
 14 But put ° ye on tlie Lord Jesus Christ, and make p 
 not provision for the flesh, \.o fulfil the lusts thereof. 
 
 1 Phil. 4:8; 1 Pet 2 : 12 .... m 1 Pet. 4 : 3 .... n 1 Cor. 6 ! 9, 10 .... Gal. 3 : 27 .... p Gal. 6 : 16. 
 
 indwelling in us of God, who is light, and im- 
 parts light to all in whom he dwells, there is the 
 best of all protections against the works of the 
 darkness. Comp. John 1 : 6, 7.— Let us walk 
 honorably as in the day. "Let us walk 
 as men commonly do in the eyes of their fellow- 
 men, remembering that we are walking in the 
 eye of God."— (/o«oe«.)— Not with reveling 
 and carousals; not in harlotry and in- 
 temperance ; not in strife and jealousy. 
 The first two words signify social excesses, 
 the second two excesses of the animal appe- 
 tites and passions, the third two the sins of 
 combativeness.— But put ye on the Lord 
 Jesus Christ. This it is to be a Christian : to 
 
 be in Christ or to have Christ in us, so being 
 transformed into his character.— And take not 
 forethought for the flesh for the gratifica- 
 tion of its appetites. If one does not do this, 
 if by love he serves his neighbor, if he walks 
 honorably in the sight of the Lord, if he puts on 
 the Lord Jesus Christ, he will have no reason to 
 fear the law, and no desire to escape from it. 
 Observe how here as in the preceding chapter 
 (12 : 1, 2), Paul does not content himself with mere 
 prohibitions, but calls on his readers to guard 
 against the works of darkness by putting on the 
 armor of light, and against fulfilling the lusts of 
 the flesh by putting on the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 PAUL'S PRINCIPLES OP CASUISTRY. 
 
 But him that is weak in faith receive ye, yet not 'to doubtful disputations. One man hath 
 faith to eat all things : but lie that is weak eateth herbs. Let not him that eateth set at nought 
 him that eateth not ; and let not him that eateth not judge him that eateth : for God hath 
 received him. Who art thou that judgest the -servant of another ? to his own lord he standeth 
 or falleth. Yea, he shall be made to stand ; for the Lord hath power to make him stand. One 
 man esteemeth one day above another : another esteemeth every day alike. Let each man be 
 fully assured in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord : and he 
 that eateth, eateth unto the Lord, for he giveth God thanks ; and he that eateth not, unto the 
 Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks. For none of us liveth to himself, and none dieth 
 to himself. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord ; or whether we die, we die unto the 
 Lord : whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ died, and 
 lived again, that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living. But thou, why dost thou 
 judge thy brother » or thou again, why dost thou set at nought thy brother ? for we shall all 
 stand before the judgement-seat of (Sod. For it is written, 
 
 As I live, saith the Lord, to me every knee shall how, 
 And every tongue shall ^confess to God. 
 
 So then each one of us shall give account of himself to God. 
 
 Let us not therefore judge one another any more : but judge ye this rather, that no man put 
 a stumbling-block in his brother's way, or an occasion of falling. I know, and am persuaded 
 in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean of itself : save that to him who accounteth any thing 
 to be unclean, to him it is unclean For if because of meat thy brother is grieved, thou walkest 
 no longer in love. Destroy not with thy meat him for whom Christ died. L<'t not then your 
 good be evil spoken of: for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness 
 and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost For he that herein sen'eth Christ is well-pleasing to God, 
 and approved of men. So then Met us follow after things which make for peace, and things 
 whereby we may edify one another. Overthrow not for meat's sake the work of (Jod. All 
 things indeed are clean ; howbeit it is evil for that man who eateth with offence. It is good not 
 to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor to do any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth.^ The faith: 
 which thou hast, have thou to thyself before God. Happy is he that judgeth not himself in' 
 that which he "approveth. But he that doubteth is condemned if he eat, because he eateth not 
 of faith ; and whatsoever is not of faith is sin. ' I 
 
 1 Or, for deeitiont 
 of douhu. 
 
 3 Or, givepraUt. 
 
 4 Many ancient an- 
 thoritles read ice 
 follow. 
 
 5 Many ancient au- 
 thor! tie.-^ add or 
 is offetided, or is 
 weak. 
 
 6 Ur, putteth to the 
 tent. 
 
 7 Many iiuthoritlea, 
 Bome ancient, in- 
 sert here ch. xvi. 
 25-27. 
 
 There are certiiin acts which the educated conscience universally recognizes as pro- 
 liiljited by the moral law : such are the violation of the rights of property, and the 
 obligations of truth and of cha.stity. There are certain other acts which the educated con- 
 science universally recognizes as coming within the liberty of the children of God, a.s not 
 ])niliibited by the moral law : such are the enjoyment of fiction, as being no vi(dati(m of the 
 law of truth, and the maintenance of marital relations, as being no violation of tlie law of 
 chastity. There are, however, a great number of acts that lie midway between the.se two ; 
 they are neither certiiinly right nor certainly wrong ; certainly prohibited nor certainly 
 jMirmitted. They are questionable, or at least questioned acts. How to determine what is 
 right and what wrong among these questioned acts, is a problem which has perplexed not 
 only every conscientious and even every timid person, but also every teacher of practical 
 morals in every age and nation. The Church has oscillated between a severity and strict- 
 ne.ss, which has ma<l(; man a slave to a minute and ]»rcdetcrniincd code of laws, and so 
 forbidih-ii all fii-c and jdvuu.s life, ami all miliiiKlcrcd and licaUhful development, and a 
 
214: ROMAA'tS. [Ch. XIY. 
 
 license of action, whicli has broken down all moral restraints, and destroyed not only the 
 validity of law, but the moral force of the conscience. 
 
 An illustration of the former is afforded by the precepts of the Pharisees, who hedged 
 about the individual with minute and often wholly insignificant regulations, and by so 
 concentrating his attention upon mint, anise, and cummin, as necessarily to lead to a 
 neglect of the weightier matters of the law : judgment, righteousness, and mercy. It was 
 illustrated in the ascetic system developed in the earlier ages of the Roman Catholic 
 Church, which made, if not every pleasure and every natural and self-pleasing act a sin, at 
 least every denial thereof a virtue. It was illustrated again in the Puritanism which grew 
 out of Calvinistic theology, and was a reaction against the license of the cavaliers in En- 
 gland, and which made war not only against images and music in the churches, but against 
 art and literature in the homes, on the ground that they tended to worldliness and moral 
 debasement. The other extreme is illustrated by the Gnostic philosophy in the early 
 Church, which, drawing a sharp line between soul and body, taught that a pure soul 
 might abide in an impure body, and that if the spirit were recreated by the Holy Ghost, 
 the individual was set free from all moral law, and was under no ethical restraint. It was 
 illustrated again by the teachings of the Jesuits in the seventeenth century, of the extraor- 
 dinary doctrine of Probabilism ; the doctrine that it was right to do whatever there 
 was " probable authority " for doing, and that any act which had been approved or even 
 permitted by a reputable ecclesiastical writer, was sanctioned by probable authority. 
 Under this teaching, lying and robbery and murder were openly justified ; but it fell 
 before the shafts of Pascal in his famous Provincial Letters, and no longer has any standing 
 in the Roman Catholic Church. The adjustment of these debatable questions in morals 
 constitutes a distinct department in ethics known as casuistry, which is thus defined by the 
 " Encyclopedia Britannica " : " Any important development of casuistry can only take place 
 under a government of laws expressed in definite precepts ; but the development may have 
 its origin in either of two oj^posite causes, or in a combination of the two — in the desire, 
 namely, to fulfill the laws, or in a desire to evade them, or in a conflict of these desires." 
 The fourteenth chapter of Romans affords, in a practical way, certain fundamental 
 principles of casuistry for the solution of debatable questions in morals. The writer in the 
 "Encyclopedia Britannica" just quoted, closes his article by saying that "Modern writers in 
 ethics generally content themselves with the treatment of great principles, without laying 
 down specific rules for their practical application. " In this respect they have followed the 
 Pauline method. The inherent wisdom of this course is evident from the consideration that 
 the specific questions vary from epoch to epoch, since what is morally injurious in one 
 age or one community, may be wholly innocent in another, while the fundamental princi- 
 ples remain unchanged and unchangeable. Thus the specific questions before the Apostle's 
 mind in this chapter are no longer questions. But the principles which he lays down are 
 equally applicable to the solution of questions of a similar character in our own time. 
 
 These questions in casuistry, in Paul's time, gTew out of the relations which the Christian 
 Church sustained to the pagan world. Trivial as they seem to us, they were significant and 
 serious in that age. The object of the Christian Church was to make a conquest both of 
 the Jewish and the Gentile races. If it contemptuously disregarded the prejudices of 
 either, it obstructed its own way to the hearts which it wished to reach. And yet these 
 prejudices were absolutely antagonistic. It could not yield to Jewish prejudice without be- 
 coming hostile to the Gentile ; it could not yield to the Gentile prejudice without being 
 hostile to the Jews. How to reconcile these conflicting demands, how to steer a middle 
 course rightly and wisely, so as to mediate between the two, and become hostile to neither, 
 
C'H. XIV.] ROMANS. 215 
 
 presented the chief problems of casuistry vvitli whicli Paul had to deal. Certain act.«i were 
 confessedly innocent in themselves, as eating of meat, and drinking of wine, but were ob- 
 jected to by the scrupulous Jew, because they seemed to give sanction, or at least to signify 
 indifference to, unlioly and iilolatrous pagan rites: as if the meat had been offered to idols 
 or the wine poured out in libation to them, and afterward sold in the open market, as wjis 
 often the case. Cert<iin other acts, of no inherent virtue in themselves, seemed to the Jew 
 to be required by the law, or were sacred by reason of hereditary associations, but had no 
 such aspect to the pagan ; such as the observance of certain sacred rites, circumcision, 
 fur example, or cert^iin religious festivals, the Sabbaths, for example. These particular 
 problems no longer present themselves. Meat and wine that have been offered to idols are 
 no longer for sale in our markets, and if they were, we should not regard them as polluted. 
 And the only remnant of Jewish ritual which to any portion of the Christian Church seems 
 obligatory, is the Sabbath, and that, by an almost universal consent, is changed both as 
 to the day and the method of observance. But though there is no shadowy border-land be- 
 tween Judaism and paganism, there is one between the Church and the world. Though 
 there are no longer acts which seem to be required by Jewish law, and none which seem to 
 be forbidden for their pagan aspect, there are a variety of questionable, or at leitst ques- 
 tioned acts, questioned because they violate some traditional and honored, though unwritten 
 law of the Church, or appear to churchmen, though innocent in themselves, to savor of and 
 give sanction to the spirit of worldliness. Thus arise the majority of questions in modern 
 casuistrj', such, for example, as those relating to amusements, — dancing, card-playing, 
 theater-going, etc., to whicli might have been added a ci-ntury ago the use of fiction, secular 
 nnisic, painting, and statuary. We propose in a few remaining paragraphs to state the prin- 
 ciples whicli Paul lays down in this chapter, for the solution of the doubtful and difficult 
 questions of his time, applying them illustratively to the doubtful and difficult questions of 
 our time. 
 
 I. He lays down the general principle, which afterward Augustine amplified and 
 emphasized, that moral character belongs to the agent doing, not to the thing done. There 
 is nothing, Paul says, unclean, i. e., common, unconsecrated in itself ; but to him that 
 esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean. This is the background of his chap- 
 ter, indeed of all his teaching, here and elsewhere, on this subject. An idol, he writes to 
 the Corinthians, is nothing in the world.' Therefore, it really makes no difference whether 
 meat has been offered to an idol or not. One day is not inherently and ab.solutely more 
 -sacred than another. The .sacredness lies wholly in the regard had for it in the mind of 
 the individual. Elsewhere he gives this jirinciple a still broader application. If any 
 church needed to be guarded against worldliness, it was the church at Corinth. But Paul 
 tells the Corinthians that all things are theirs, " whether the world, or life, or death, or 
 things present, or things to come." Again he bids them use the world, though as not abusing 
 it. He tells the Colossians to be on their guard against the teachers who would substitute 
 asceticism for Christianity, judge them in respect to their observance of the Sabbath, or 
 forbid them to touch, taste, and handle certain things, as essentially common or unclean. 
 He Ijids the Galatians be on their guard against similar teachers, and stand fast in the 
 liberty wherewith Christ has made them free.' This note of freedom is in all Paul's vrrit- 
 ings on ethical subjects. He repudiates absolutely the idea that there are certain actions 
 which are prohibited and certain other actions which are permitted or required. He main- 
 tains that what is required is character, that the means for the development of character is 
 
 > 1 Cor. 8 : 4 ; 10 : 19. » 1 Cor. 3 : 22 ; 7 : 31 ; Col. 2 : 16, 20-22 ; Gal. 5 : 1. 
 
216 KOMANS. [Ch. XIV. 
 
 fellowship with God, and that the moral quality of every thing depends upon the use which, 
 is made of it, and the moral quality of every action upon the spirit in which and the purpose 
 with which it is performed. He that eats and drinks at the Lord's table eats and drinks to 
 his own condemnation, if he does it in the wrong spirit ; ' he that eats and drinks meat and 
 wine tliat have been offered to idols commits no offense if he does it in Christian love and 
 Christian liberty. He that observes the day and he that does not observe the day are 
 equally approved of God, if in both is the spirit of consecrated service to God. 
 
 Who can doubt that if Paul lived in our time he would lay down the same principle 
 and just as broadly ; that lie would insist that this world is ours, that it belongs to 
 redeemed humanity, though we do not belong to it ; that we are to use it as not abusing it; 
 that in card-board there is no sin, and that the size, and shape, and markings of the card- 
 board can not make them sinful ; that there is nothing inherently more wicked in tumbling 
 balls around upon a green cloth — billiards — than other balls around upon green turf — 
 croquet ; — that no sharp line can be drawn making tableaux right and charades wicked, or 
 charades right and the drama wicked ; that, in short, all questions of casuistry, all questions 
 of the right and wrong of those matters which have a color of worldliness in them, or a 
 traditional and vmwritten law of the Church against them, are to be determined by the 
 spirit of the agent doing, not by the nature of the thing done. 
 
 II. There follows, as a necessary consequence, that the Church is to recogmize the fact 
 that these are debatable questions, and is not to attempt to lay down one absolute standard 
 and bring all to conform to it. The scrupulous man who condemns the doubtful act is not to 
 sit in judgment on his less scriipi;lous neighbor, who allows it. Each man is God's servant, 
 and must answer to his own Master, not to his fellow-servant. On the other hand, the 
 Christian free man, who sees no harm in that which his brother condemns, is not to condemn 
 his brother as a bigot or an ascetic. Each is to respect, the one the scruples, the other the 
 liberty, of his brother. Nor is one man to pronounce a course of conduct dangerous for 
 his neighbor, because he believes that it would be dangerous for himself. God is able to 
 make the free man stand in his freedom, and the cautious and scrupulous man stand in 
 his caution and his scruples. The vine is not to fear for the oak because it has no 
 trellis ; and the oak is not to jeer at the vine because it has a trellis. The cautious nature 
 is not to condemn the bolder as lawless ; nor the bolder nature to condemn the scrupulous 
 as bigoted. There is but one law for us all : we are to live unto God. Each one must be 
 fully persuaded in his own mind. If one believes that a rigorous exclusion of all so-called 
 worldly influences will enable him better to live unto God, he is not to be scoflFed at as a 
 Pharisee and a legalist ; if another believes that by a free and joyous participation in the 
 world he can better live unto God, he is not to be condemned as though he were ob- 
 livious of his obligations. One comes eating and drinking ; another neither eating nor 
 drinking ; and wisdom is justified of all her children.^ It is said that Payson would not 
 go into social gatherings of any kind, because it interfered with his spiritual life. If this 
 was his judgment, his resolve was required by his loyalty. But this does not justify im- 
 posing the same rule of exclusion on others. The Christian who has concluded that wine 
 in all its forms is deadly or even dangerous, does right to be a total abstainer, and right 
 also to persuade others to his conclusion. But this gives him no right to condemn as 
 un-Christian those who do agree not with his judgment, and therefore not with his practice. 
 Judge not that ye be not judged is the absolute rule for both. Whoever undertakes to judge 
 his brother, assumes a function which God has reserved for himself alone. 
 
 > 1 Cor. 11 : 27-29. * Matt. 11 : 16-19. 
 
111. But thoujjh all thinj,'s are lawful for the Christian, all tliinj^s are not expedient. 
 Thougli he is to stand ftist in the liberty wherewith Christ has made him free, lie ia not to 
 use his liberty for an occasion to serve the flesh.' There are certain limitations on his liberty 
 which others are not to impose, nor to be allowed to impose, and the attem))t('(l im)M)sitic)n 
 of which is always to be .strenuously resi.sted, but which he is to impose upon himself under 
 the law of self-denying love. These are four in number : 
 
 (a.) Since moral character resides in the spirit of the agent, not in the act itself, the actor 
 must be clear in his own mind before he acts. If tli.il act is questionable, it is prohibited ; 
 not by its own nature, but by his questioning. It may be innocent and even beneficial for 
 liis neighbor, and not for him ; innocent and even beneficial for him at a later period (jf his 
 spiritual development, but not now. The marriage of Martin Luther appears to all Pnjtcst- 
 ants right, bectiuse they believe he was led to it by a pure and holy love and a desire to 
 bear public testimony against the celibacy of the clergy. It appears to all Roman Catho- 
 lics wrong, because they believe in it his loyalty and his priestly purity surrendered to his 
 earthly and sensual nature. If he had doubted whether he mi'dit marry and had still 
 married, he Avould have sinned. So long as I am asking myself : May I dance ? May I 
 play cards 1 May I go to the theatre ? it is clear that I may not. An idol is naught, and 
 there is nothing evil in meat offered to an idol. But he that questions with himself whether 
 it be allowable to eat meat offered to an idol, condemns himself in eating. His (questioning 
 condemns him. The first condition of that peace of God which passeth all understanding, 
 and which is the accompaniment of righteousness, is that one be fully persuaded in his 
 own mind. So long as he doubts, his rule must be abstinence. The doubts of others are 
 not prohibitions to lis. If so, we could not go to church, since all Roman Catholics condemn 
 Protestant church-going, and many Protestants condemn Roman Catiudic church-going. 
 But our own doubts are prohibitions. The Roman Catholic, brought up to believe that 
 going to a Protestant church is a sin, sins if he goes while that is his belief. 
 
 (b.) Therefore the free man is not to endeavor to persuade the scrupulous man to dis- 
 regard his scruples. For these scruples are a law to him so long as they remain in him. 
 If I think they are needless, the product of superstition or ignorance, I may labor to remove 
 them ; but I may not labor to induce him who possesses them to <lisregard them. Grant 
 that there is no harm in a glass of wine, a game of cards, or attending a theater. There is 
 harm for him who thinks it harmful ; harm, therefore, in endeavoring to persuade him to 
 drink wine, to play cards, to go to the theater, while his conscience forbids or even ques- 
 tions. This is to set a trap in a brother's way. 
 
 (c.) For the same reason we are to consider the effect of our example on those less 
 scrupulous than ourselves. If that example is likely to lead lliem into sin, it is necessary 
 to consider whether the benefit will counterbalance the evil. Paul certiiinlj' does not mean 
 by his famous declaration, " If meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while 
 the world standeth,"* that the weaknesses of the weak are to be an absolute law to the 
 strong. This would be to forbid all progress, and even all reformation. It would have 
 kept the Christian Church always a mere Jewish sect. It would have forbidden the preach- 
 ing and practices of Luther and of Wesley ; for the one was a stumbling-block to the 
 Roman Catholics, and the other to the High Churchmen. Sometimes it is a duty to shock 
 prejudices for the purpose of destroying them, sus Christ did when he healed the palsied 
 man on the Sabbath and in the synagogue, and ate with publicans an<l sinners. The 
 general law of the Christian individual is liberty ; the general law of the Christian Church 
 
 » 1 Cor. 6 : 12 ; 10 : 23 ; Gal. 6 : 13. '1 Cor. 8 : 13. 
 
218 ROMANS. [Ch. XIV. 
 
 is liberty. The exception to this law is the further principle that this liberty is not to be 
 so used as to injure others by either directly and deliberately, or indirectly and uncon- 
 sciously, leading them to do what to their conscience is sin. 
 
 (d.) And even their feelings will be regarded by love. One will not for mere pleasure's 
 sake, for mere otherwise innocent self-indulgence sake, grieve a brother who is pained by a 
 course of conduct which he can not understand. 
 
 Such are the general principles which Paul lays down here, and again in his Epistle to 
 the Corinthians, as the principles which are to solve debatable questions in respect to 
 moral conduct. This is Paul's science of casuistry. Moral character belongs to the agent, 
 not to the act. There is nothing in itself common or unclean. All depends on the spirit 
 and the purpose of the actor. There is but one law for the Christian — to live and to die 
 unto the Lord. He who is not doing this can not save his life by rules of moral conduct. 
 He who is doing this is not under bondage to specific rules. He may do any thing which 
 will conserve and promote a life consecrated to the Lord. What will promote and conserve 
 such a life he must judge for himself ; no one else may or can judge for him. If any one 
 else attempts this, he is to be resisted, as claiming an allegiance due to the Lord alone. What- 
 ever seems to him likely to hinder that life is wrong. Whatever he questions as to whether 
 it will hinder that life or no, is wrong. And he must be careful in the exercise of his Chris- 
 tian freedom to do all things that will promote that life in others, not to entrap others 
 of weaker nature, nor unconsciously to lead them into violating their own conscience, nor 
 even to grieve them needlessly for the sake of his own sensuous pleasure. He is one with 
 Christ. And he must live to please his neighbor, not himself; and so to please him as 
 to build him up in the strength and the liberty of a Christian manhood. 
 
Ch. XIV.] 
 
 E0MAN8. 
 
 219 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 HIM that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to 
 doubtful disputations. 
 2 For one believeth tliat he may eat all tilings : an- 
 other, who is weak, eateth herbs. 
 
 3 Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth 
 not ; and let not him which eateth not judfj;e him that 
 eateth : for God halh receiveil him. 
 
 4 Who " art tliou that judgcsl another man's servant ? 
 to his own master he standeth or talleth. Yea, he shall 
 be holden up : for God ^ is able to make him stand. 
 
 Ch. 14. THK 1,.\W OK Ia)VK AND TIIK LAW (IK 
 LIKKKTY. — Whom to receive, and how to receive 
 TO Christ's Church.— The irreverence of judg- 
 ing. — The secret op sanctity : all things unto 
 THE LoKD.— God's judgment op us a reason for 
 self-judgment.— Lovk's limitation on liberty : 
 set no traps ; put no stumbling-blocks ; give no 
 GRIEFS. — Things to follow: pe\ce and up- building. 
 —To QUESTION IS TO condemn.— The secret op sin ; 
 UN faith. 
 
 In order to understand this chapter, the stu- 
 dent must bear in mind that Jewish ritual pro- 
 scribed certain meats as unclean, and required 
 the observances of certain days as religious fes- 
 tivals. As religious observances, these require- 
 ments were so emphasized by Pharisaism that 
 the conscientious Jew feared to eat meat or 
 drink wine bought ui the open market, lest he 
 should eat or drink that which had been polluted 
 by having been previously offered to idols. He 
 therefore abstained from all such articles, con- 
 fining himself to vegetables of whose ijurity he 
 could assure himself, because they could be fully 
 prepared for his table in his own home. When 
 the Jews were converted to Christianitj-, some of 
 them brought these religious convictions with 
 them. Disputes arose in the Church as to the 
 legitimacy of eating meats, and as to the obliga- 
 tion of the observance of religious days (see Acts 
 15 : 20, ii). The existence of these questions and 
 these parties must be borne in mind in the study 
 of this chapter. With it he should compare 
 1 Cor. 10 : 14-33. 
 
 1-4, He that is Aveak in faith. These 
 words do not mean one who has doubt about 
 Christianity, but one who is weak or imperfect 
 in spiritual vision, so that he measures life and 
 conduct not by its real spiritual significance, but 
 by external or conventional standards. Such 
 men are to be received into the Christian Church. 
 — But not to donbtful disputation. A clear 
 mistranslation. It should be. Sot to the Judf/inr/ 
 or discernirif/ of thoughts, so rendered by Alford, 
 Jowett, and Meyer. Those who have doubts and 
 scruples that prevent them from entering into 
 the liberty wherewith Christ makes free, are not 
 to have their doubts and difficulties subjected to 
 the criticisms and judgments of those who are 
 stronger in the faith and freer in life. — For one 
 has faith to eat all things. Not a belief 
 that he may eat all things, but a spiritual per- 
 ception that all things are pure (vene u), which 
 
 enables him to eat all things without injury. 
 Faith in Paul is always a spiritual, never a merely 
 intellectual act. — Another, who is weak, eat- 
 eth herbs. That is, weak in faith, and so not 
 discerning that an idol is nothing, and meats that 
 have been offered to idols are none the worse 
 therefor (i cor. 8:4, lo, 9 : 25, 26). — Let not him 
 that eateth despise him that eateth not, 
 etc. The meaning is clear. He who has no 
 scruples must not have contempt for the need- 
 less scruples of his brother, and he who has 
 scruples must not sit in judgment and condcum 
 his less scruijulous brother, and for the reason 
 stated in the immediately following clause. — For 
 God hath received him. That God hath re- 
 ceived him is made known by his possession of 
 the fruits of the Spirit (oai 5 : 22, 23), and by his 
 life of Christian obedience and love (1 John 4 : 1, is). 
 He who gives this evidence of having the 
 Spirit of God dwelling in him, is not to be cast 
 out of Christian fellowship by reason of his dis- 
 regard of any external standards.— Who art 
 thou that judgest another's servant ? He 
 is God's servant. God, therefore, only can judge 
 him. — To his own master he standeth or 
 falleth. Yea ! he shall be holden up; for 
 God is able to make him stand. The ref- 
 erence is not to any act of God enabling him to 
 stand in the Judgment-day. The m;m with scru- 
 ples fears for the man less scrupulous, lest he 
 shall fall under temptation. Paul answers, 
 "You are not to judge what temptations an- 
 other man may successfully encoimter." If 
 strong in faith, he enters into Christian liberty, 
 God will be his care-taker. God will enable him, 
 having done all, still to stand. The other inter- 
 pretation is, however, given by some authorities. 
 .5, 6. In these verses Paul applies the same 
 principle to observances of days, returning again, 
 however, to its application to the question of 
 eating. The principle is evidently the same in 
 both cases. Compare with Paul's language hero 
 Col. 2 : 16 ; Gal. 4 : 10. The Jewish year was full 
 of sacred days. Some of the Jewish Christians 
 continued to observe these days after they had 
 come into the Church of Christ ; others did not. 
 Paul treats this observance of days as one of 
 the non-essentials of religion. Among the days 
 thus transferred from the Jewish to the Chris- 
 tian calendar was the Sabbath, or rest-day. 
 During Paul's life this seveutli-day was gradu- 
 
220 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 [Ch. XIV, 
 
 5 One man "^ esteemeth one day above another : an- 
 other esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be 
 fully persuaded in his own mind. 
 
 6 He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the 
 Lord ; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord 
 he doth not regard it. He that eateth, eateth to the 
 Lord, for he givelh God thanks : and he that eateth 
 not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks. 
 
 7 For none '' ot us liveth to himseU, and no man dieth 
 to himself. 
 
 8 For whether we live, we live unto the Lord ; and 
 
 whether we die, we die unto the Lord : whether we 
 live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's. 
 
 9 For ■= to this end Christ both died, and rose, and 
 revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and 
 living. 
 
 10 But why dost thou judge thy brother ? or why- 
 dost thou set at nought thy brother ? for we shall all 
 stand before the judgment seat of Christ. 
 
 11 F"or it is written,^ As I live, saith the Lord, every 
 knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess 
 to God. 
 
 c Col. 2 : 16 d 1 Pet. 4 : 2. . . .e Phil. 2 : 9-11 f laa. 45 : 23. 
 
 ally dropping out of Christian observance, and 
 the first day of the week, as a commemoration 
 of Christ's resurrection, was taking its place. 
 Paul puts the observances of all days, including 
 the Sabbath, on the same basis as the Jewish law 
 respecting uncleau meats. I do not see how, in 
 the light of Paul's teaching here, and in the par- 
 allel passages referred to above, Paul's teaching 
 can be regarded as consistent with the doctrine 
 that the Fourth Commandment is one of univer- 
 sal obligation. The observances of the Lord's 
 Day must rest on other grounds than that of ex- 
 press statute given in the wilderness to the Jew- 
 ish people. The attempt to avoid this conclu- 
 Bion by sujiposing that Paul excepted in his 
 own mind one day, without, however, mention- 
 ing it, or that he meant by Sabbaths in Col. 2 : 
 16 something else than what we mean by Sab- 
 baths to-day, seems to me to put into Paul's 
 teaching what can not by any sound principles of 
 interpretation be found there. — Let every man 
 be fully persuaded in his own mind. 
 "Not compelled by some external rule." — (Jow- 
 ett.) His conviction must be based on his own 
 moral judgment, not on traditional authority. 
 Comp. verses 14, 20.— He that regardeth the 
 day regardeth it unto the Lord. There- 
 fore, since his regard is really for the Lord, it is 
 to be respected, even though he may be under a 
 misapprehension as to the nature of the obliga- 
 tion imposed upon him by his regard for the 
 Lord. The next clause, "^e that regardeth not 
 the day.,'''' etc., is wanting from the best manu- 
 scripts, and is regarded as an interpolation, by 
 Jowett, Meyer and Westcott, and Hort. "The 
 interpolation was very readily suggested by the 
 sense of a want of completeness in the passage." 
 — (Meyer.) — He that eateth. He that eats 
 meats careless where they came from, and he 
 whose scruples make him abstain from meats 
 lest he eat meats offered to idols, both give God 
 thanks at the meal, thus showing that they sanc- 
 tify God in their hearts ; and this sanctifying of 
 God in their hearts, this spirit of consecration 
 and gratitude constitutes the reality of religion. 
 Not what a man eats, but the spirit with which he 
 eats determines the piety of his act (i Cor. lo : .ii). 
 7-9. No one of us is living to himself. 
 
 and no one dies to himself. "Living and 
 dying represents the whole sum of our course on 
 earth." — (Alford.) Paul puts as a fact what is 
 the ideal of the Christian experience. It is a 
 life, all of whose inspiration comes from, all of 
 whose issues are in, God. If this be not so, we in 
 so far fail of being God's children. If this be so, 
 no matter of days or meats is of grave impor- 
 tance. Compare with this as Paul's ideal of 
 Christian life, Phil.l :21. — Whether we live or 
 die, we are the Lord's. If events so mo- 
 mentous as living and dying do not separate us 
 from our relationship to God, still less, events so 
 insignificant as the kind of food we eat, or the 
 kind of days we observe. — For to this end 
 Christ died and lived again that, etc. The 
 word rose is wanting in the best manuscripts, 
 and is omitted by Meyer, Alford, Jowett, West- 
 cott, and Hort. Paul is carried on by that spirit- 
 ual habit of mind so characteristic of him, from 
 the lower plane of casuistry and the details of 
 earthly life, to the higher plane of spiritual ex- 
 perience, and that mystical identity of the be- 
 liever with Christ, which was so favorite a theme 
 with him. Christ died and lived again that he 
 might carry the believer with him, and thus be 
 Lord over his own, both in the earthly and in the 
 heavenly life. The moment one rises into this 
 conception of the kingdom of Christ, it is impos- 
 sible for him either to despise or to condemn his 
 brother who has been brought with him by the 
 Lord into the same kingdom. This impossibility 
 is not only intellectual, it is still more, moral and 
 spiritual. 
 
 10-13. But Avhy dost thou judge thy 
 brother ? That is. Why dost thou of weak faith 
 judge him Avho lives in the liberty of a strong 
 faith?— Or why dost thou despise thy 
 brother ? That is. Why dost thou of strong faith 
 despise him of weak faith, perplexed and bound 
 by scruples '?— For we shall all stand at the 
 judgment-seat of God. Observe that this fact 
 is made in the Apostle's argument a ground, not 
 for fear, anxiety, and bondage unto law, but for 
 liberty and largeness of charity. — As it is writ- 
 ten. In Isaiah 45 : 23. Comp. PhU. 2 : 10, 11.— 
 Every knee shall bow to me, and every 
 tongue shall praise God. It is not unreason- 
 
Ch. XIV.] 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 221 
 
 12 So then every one of us shall give account of 
 himself U> Goil. 
 
 13 Let us not therefore judge one another any more : 
 but juilge tliis rather, that no manputastuinblingblock 
 or an occasion to fall in his brother's way. 
 
 14 I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, 
 that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that 
 esteemeth any tiling; to be unclean, to him it is unclean. 
 
 15 But if thy brother be grieved with thy meat, now 
 walkest thou not charitably. Destroy » not him with 
 thy meal, for whom Christ died. 
 
 16 Let not then your good be evil spoken of : 
 
 17 Fort" the kingdom of God is not meat and drink ; 
 but righteousness,' and peace.-i and joy '' in the Holy 
 Ghost. 
 
 I Cor. 8:11 h Matt. 6 : 3.1 i Phil. .( : 9 . . 
 
 .j ch. 5:1; .lohu It; 
 
 Phil. 4 : 7. . . .k ch. 15 : 13. 
 
 able to surmise that in the Apostle's mitid this 
 giving thauks is for the redemption promised in 
 verse 4. So in Phil. 2:11, the eonfession of Jesus 
 Christ as Lord, is an utterance of praise for the 
 gift of him who was called Jesus, because he 
 saves his people from their sins. This interpre- 
 tation is borne out by the picture in Revelation 
 5 : 9, 10 ; the meaning of the Ai)ostle, then, here 
 is, that since each member of Christ's Church 
 acknowledges subjection to Christ, and will give 
 thanks for Christ's finished redemption, no one 
 is to demand subjection of liis brother, or judge 
 that his brother is not a child of God, because 
 in the exercise of the liberty of childhood, his 
 standard of conduct in external things diUcrs 
 from that of his brother. — Let us not there- 
 fore judite one another any more. Since 
 God is our judge, he who assumes to judge his 
 brother assumes a function which belongs exclu- 
 sively to God. Comp. Matt. 7 : 1, and note 
 there. — But judi;e this rather, that no man 
 put a stumblinsc-block or an occasion of 
 falling in his brother's way. This will be 
 judging ourselves, not our brother. The stum- 
 bling-block [noiwy.iiuua) is that which is accident- 
 ally left in another's way, over which he may 
 falL The occasion of falling {nxdvdalny) is a trap 
 consciously set for the ensnaring of another. We 
 are neither so to use our faith and liberty as to 
 allure others into doing what they regard as 
 wrong, nor so that our example shall, without 
 our deliberate intention, become an occasion of 
 their falling into what is to them temptation and 
 sin. The one precept would be violated by offer- 
 ing a glass of wine to one who thought drinking 
 wrong. The other precept would be violated by 
 setting an example of wine-drinking without 
 considering the effect on others who through it 
 might be led into wrong. 
 
 14-18. For I knowand am persnaded in 
 the Lord Jesus. Not as in the Old Version, 
 by the Lord Jesus. The meaning is well given 
 by Meyer, "In my fellowship with the Lord." 
 "The words, 'in the Lord Jesus,' do not mean 
 as one taught by Christ, as one who has received 
 a revelation from Christ. They an; simply the 
 form in which St, Paul expresses his living and 
 doing all things in Christ, as in language colder 
 and more ap]jropriate to our time, we might say 
 
 as a Christian." — (Jowett.) — That nothing i« 
 unclean of itself. Kather, common, that is, 
 not set apart as sacred, unconsecrated. Under 
 the N. T. dispensation every thing is consecrated 
 to God, set apart for a sacred use, and sanctified 
 by the use. 1 Tim. 4 : 4. — Except that to him 
 that esteemeth any thing to' be unclean, 
 to him it is unclean. The sacredue.ss of 
 every external thing depends not upon its own 
 nature, but upon the way with which it is re- 
 garded, and so the use to which it is jjtit. The 
 profaning is always in the person, not in the ex- 
 ternal thing or act. The first clause of this verse 
 can not be taken without the last clause, which 
 qualifies and defines it. Comj). Tit. 1 : 1.^. — I'^or 
 if thy brother be a;rieved with thy meat 
 thou art not walking according to love. 
 Before, Paul has said that we must not put a 
 stumbling-block or a temptaticm to sin in our 
 brother's way for the sake of indulgence even in 
 that which is in itself hinocent. He now adds 
 that we must not, for the sake of such self-in- 
 dulgence, inflict upon our brother pain. These 
 three conditions constitute the three-fold limita- 
 tions which love puts on libertj'. We must not 
 so use our liberty as to temjjt our brother into 
 what seems wrong for him, nor afford an occa- 
 sion for his stumbling into sin, nor inflict need- 
 less pain ujjon him. — Do not for meat destroy 
 him for whom Christ died. If we are not 
 even to grieve our brother, much less arc we so 
 to act as to lead him into sin and soul-destruc- 
 tion. — Let not your good be evil spoken of. 
 A general principle, though here given with 
 reference to its special apijlieatiou. Do not use 
 your liberty so that it will be misapprehended 
 through your carelessness or your selfishness. — 
 For the kingdom of (>od is not meat and 
 drink. The meaning is not merely thai the 
 kingdom of God is not attained through meat 
 and drink, but allegiance to God does not consist 
 in eating and drinkiiiLT, in distinguishing between 
 the di'an and the unclean ; in short, in the ex- 
 ternal Ihiiigs, — Hut righteousness and peace 
 and joy in the Holy Cihost. All three words 
 are tiualified by the last clause : righteousness 
 by the indwelling of God's Spirit ; ])eace, which 
 is '(jne of the fruits of tlie Spirit, tlie peace of 
 God that passeth all uuderstaudiug ; and joy in 
 
222 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 [Ch. XIV. 
 
 i8 For he that in these things serveth Christ is ac- 
 ceptable to God, and approved of men. 
 
 19 Let' us theretore followafter the things which make 
 for peace,and things ""wherewith one may edity another. 
 
 20 For meat destroy not the work of God. All 
 things indeed are pure ; " but ii ts° evil for that man 
 who eateth with offence. 
 
 21 Ji IS good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, 
 
 nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is 
 ofTended, or is made weak. 
 
 22 Hast thou faith ? have it to thyself before God. 
 Happy p is he that condemneth not himself in that thing 
 which he alloweth. 
 
 23 And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because 
 he eateth not of faith : for whatsoever 'J is not of faith 
 is sin. 
 
 1 Ps. 34 ! 14; Heb. 12 : 14. 
 
 1 Cor. 14 : 12. . . .n Titus 1 : 16 1 Cor. 8 : 10-13 pi John 3 : 21 q Heb. 11 
 
 the Lord. The student will observe that it is 
 clear here that righteousness is not something 
 external attributed to the believer, but some- 
 thing interior wrought within liim by the in- 
 dwelling of the divine Spirit. — For he that in 
 these things. Or, according to some readings, 
 he that in this. The Old Version adoj^ts the one, 
 the New Version the other. The former reading 
 is defended by Meyer, the latter by Jowett and 
 Alford. In the one case the meaning will be. 
 He who in righteousness, peace, and joy serves 
 God ; in the other case the meaning will be. He 
 who in the Holy Spirit, that is, in loving com- 
 munion with God, serves God. The difference is 
 not material, for in the one case the thought of 
 the reader is directed to the divine life, in the 
 other case to the fruits or products of the divine 
 life. — Serveth Christ is well pleasing to 
 God and approved of men. As money which 
 has been tried and assayed and ^^o proved to be 
 good. The proof of Christian character among 
 men is not scrupulous regard to conventional 
 requirements, but the spirit of divine love in 
 daily life. For meaning of the word approved, 
 comp. 1 Cor. 11 : 19 ; 3 Cor. 10 : 18 ; 13 : 7. 
 
 19-23. Let us therefore folloAV after the 
 things which make for peace, and the 
 things whereby we may edify one another. 
 The two standards by which one may determine 
 what he may or may not do among the things 
 which are innocent in themselves, but are sub- 
 ject matters of debate in the brotherhood. He 
 must always study to pursue those courses of 
 conduct which first tend to peace, eschewing 
 those which provoke to strife and debate ; and 
 secondly, those which build up men in Christ 
 Jesus, eschewing those things which stumble 
 them and cause them to fall. — For meat de- 
 stroy not the Avork of God. God is build- 
 ing up character in his children. We must not 
 by our liberty pull down that which God is 
 building up. — All things indeed are clean, 
 etc. A repetition of the sentiment of verse 
 14. The principle is the same as that laid 
 down by Christ in Matt. 5 : 39, 30. — It is good 
 * * * nor to do any thing whereby thy 
 brother stumbleth or is tempted to sin or 
 is made weak. We must not forget that in 
 this verse Paul is putting the exception to the 
 larger and universal law of liberty, on which he 
 has laid such emphasis throughout the chapter. 
 
 Nothing is unclean ; it is right to eat meat or 
 drink wine, but if any specific eating of meat or 
 drinking of wine will do injury to another, it is 
 good to forego the liberty. It will hardly be 
 claimed that Paul, because of this motto, was 
 either a vegetarian or a total abstainer. He does 
 not make the condition of the weakest the uni- 
 versal law for the entire Christian Church. — 
 Hast thou faith ? That is, the power which 
 perceives the spiritual innocence in all these ex- 
 ternal things. Comp. verse 1. — Have it for 
 thyself before God. There isa joy in this sense 
 of personal liberty, in the presence of a Father 
 who understands us. We still keep this joy and 
 strength of liberty, even when for love's sake we 
 forego the particular acts from which, if we con- 
 sidered only ourselves and God, we should not 
 be debarred. — Happy is he that judgeth not 
 himself in that which he allows. That is, 
 to himself. Jad(j(-th is not equivalent to con- 
 demneth. The meaning is. He who does not sit 
 in judgment upon himself, that is, he who is so 
 certain of his convictions that his decision for 
 this or that course is not liable to self-accusation, 
 self-questioning, self -judgment. "He does not 
 institute any such judgment as the anxious and 
 uncertain one does." — (Meyer.) Comp. 1 Cor. 
 4 : 3, 4, New Version. — And he that disputeth 
 Avith himself is condemned if he eat. He 
 who has overcome by debate his own scruples 
 against an act which he thinks doubtful is, by 
 that very fact, condemned, tbougli the act may 
 be entirely innocent in itself. — Because not 
 from faith. That is, because his act of liberty 
 does not proceed from a spiritual conviction of 
 its innocence, and his freedom as a son of God, 
 but from a lower motive, leading him to trans- 
 gress the higher law imposed on him, though by 
 a mistaken conscience. — And every thing not 
 from faith is sin. Comp. Heb. 11 : 6. This is 
 the fundamental fact in Paul's theology. Faith, 
 that is, the power which perceives and receives 
 God as the source of all life, is the foundation of 
 all character. Whatever flows from aught else 
 carries pollution with it ; whatever is built on 
 aught else is temporary, and will be destroyed. 
 Comp. 3 Pet. 1 : 5, where faith is represented as 
 the foundation of character, and Gal. 5 : 32, 23, 
 where all excellencies of character are repre- 
 sented as the fruit of the indwelling Spirit of 
 God, received only by faith. 
 
CHAPTERS XV. AND XVI 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 Now we that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please our- 
 eelves. Let each one of us please his neighbour for that which is good, unto edifying. For 
 Christ also pleased not himself ; but. as it is written. The reproaches of them that reproached 
 thee fen upon me. For whatsoever thiiigs were written aforetime were written for our learning, 
 that through patience and through comfort of the scriptures we might have hope. Now the 
 God of patience and of comfort grant you to be of the same mind one with another according 
 to Christ Jesus : that with one accord ye may with one mouth glorify the God and Father of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ. Wherefore receive ye one another, even as Christ also received 'you, to the 
 glory of God. For I say that Christ hath been made a minister of the circumcision for the 
 truth of God. that he might confirm the promises ffiven unto the fathers, and that the Gentiles 
 might glorify God for his mercy ; as it is written. 
 
 Therefore w'M I 'give praise unto thee among the Gentiles, 
 
 And sing unto thy name. 
 And again he saith, 
 
 Rejoice, ye Gentiles, with his people. 
 And again. 
 
 Praise the Lord, all ye Gentiles ; 
 
 And let all the peoples praise him. 
 And again, Isaiah saith. 
 
 There shall be the root of Jesse, 
 
 And he that ariseth to rule over the Gentiles ; 
 
 On him shall the Gentiles hope. 
 
 Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, 
 in the power of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 And I myself also am persuaded of you, my brethren, that ye yourselves are full of good- 
 ness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish one another. But I write the more boldly 
 unto you in some measure, as putting you again in remembrance, because of the grace that 
 was given me of God, that I should be a minister of Christ Jesus unto the Gentiles, ^ministering 
 the gospi'l of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be made acceptable, being sancti- 
 fied by the Holy Ghost. I have therefore my glorying in Christ Jesus in things pertaining to 
 God. For I will not dare to speak of any 'things save those which Christ wrought through me, 
 for the obedience of the Gentiles, by word and deed, in the power of signs and wonders, in the 
 power of "the Holy Ghost ; so that from Jerusalem, and round about even unto Illyricum, I 
 have "fully preached the gospel of Christ ; yea, 'making it my aim so to preach the gospel, not 
 where Christ was already named, that I might not build upon another man's foundation ; but, 
 as it is written, 
 
 They shall see, to whom no tidings of him came, 
 
 And they who have not heard shall understand. 
 
 Wherefore also I was hindered these many times from coming to you : but now. having no 
 more any place in these regions, and having these many years a longing to come unto yon, 
 whensoever I go unto Spain (for I hope to see you in my journey, and to be brought on my way 
 thitherward by you. if first in some measure I shall have been satisfied with your company) — 
 but now. I gay. I go unto Jenisalem. ministering unto the saints. For it hath been the good 
 pleasure of Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain contribution for the poor among the saints 
 that are at Jerusalem. Yea, it hath been their good pleasure ; and their debtors they are. For 
 if the Gentiles have been ma<l(' partakers of their spiritual things, they owe- it to (hem also to 
 minister unto them in carnal things. When therefore I have accomplished this, and have 
 sealed to them this fruit, I will go on by you unto Spain. And I know that, when I come unto 
 you. I shall come in the fulness of the blessing of Christ. 
 
 2 Or, con/eta. 
 
 S Gr. minMering 
 in sacriflee. 
 
 4 Or. 0/ those things 
 
 which ChrM 
 wrought not 
 through me. 
 
 5 Miiny ancient 
 authorities rcail 
 the Spirit of God. 
 One readd the 
 Spirit. 
 
 6 Or. /ulflUed. 
 
 7 Gr. being ambi^ 
 ttoua. 
 
224 
 
 EOMANS. 
 
 [Chs. XV., XVL 
 
 Now I beseech you, brethren, by our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the love of the Spirit, that 
 ye strive together with me in your prayers to Gfod for me ; that I may be delivered from them 
 that are disobedient in Juda-a, and that my ministration which / have for Jerusalem may be 
 acceptable to the saints ; that I may come unto you in joy through the will of God, and together 
 with you find rest. Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen. 
 
 I commend unto you Phcebe our sister, who is a 'serv'ant of the church that is at Cenchrese : 
 that ye receive her in the Lord, worthily of the saints, and that ye assist her in whatsoever 
 matter she may have need of you : for she herself also hath been a succourer of many, and of 
 mine own self. 
 
 Salute Prisca and Aquila my fellow-workers in Christ Jesus, who for my life laid down 
 their o^vn necks ; unto whom not only I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles : 
 and salute the church that is in their house. Salute Epaenetus my beloved, who is the flrstfruits 
 of Asia unto Christ. Salute Mary, who bestowed much labour on you. Salute Andronicns and 
 "Junias, my kinsmen, and my fellow-prisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also 
 have been in Christ before me. Salute Ampliatus my beloved in the Lord. Salute Urbanus our 
 fellow-worker in Christ, and Stachys my beloved. Salute Apelles the approved in Christ. 
 Salute them which are of the hmisehold of Aristobulus. Salute Herodion my kinsman. Salute 
 them of the household of Narcissus, which are in the Lord. Salute Tryphaena and Trj'phosa, 
 who labour in the Lord. Salute Persis the beloved, which laboured much in the Lord. Salute 
 Eufus the chosen in the Lord, and his mother and mine. Salute Asyncritns, Phlegon, Hermes, 
 Patrobas. Hennas, and the brethren that are with them. Salute Philologus and Julia, Nereus 
 and his sister, and Olympas, and all the saints that are with them. Salute one another with a 
 holy kiss. All the churches of Christ salute you. 
 
 Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which are causing the divisions and occasions of 
 stumbling, contrary to the ' "doctrine which ye learned: and turn away from them. For they 
 that are such serve not our Lord Christ, but their own belly ; and by their smooth and fair 
 speech they beguile the hearts of the innocent. For your obedience is come abroad unto all 
 men. I rejoice therefore over you : but I would have you wise unto that which is good, and 
 simple unto that which is evil. And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. 
 
 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. 
 
 Timothy my fellow-worker saluteth you ; and Lucius and Jason and Sosipater, my kins- 
 men. I Tertius, ^'who write the epistle, salute you in the Lord. Gains my host, and of the 
 whole church, saluteth you. Erastus the treasurer of the city saluteth you, and Quartus the 
 brother. ' - 
 
 '^Now to him that is able to stablish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus 
 Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which hath been kept in silence through times 
 eternal, but now is manifested, and '*by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the com- 
 mandment of the eternal God, is made known unto all the nations unto obedience ''of faith ; 
 to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, '"to whom be the glory ' 'for ever. Amen. 
 
 8 Or, deacone»». 
 
 10 Or, teaching. 
 
 11 Or, who write the 
 epistle in the Lord, 
 salute you. 
 
 12 Some ancient 
 authorities insert 
 here ver. 24. The 
 grace of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ be 
 with you all. 
 Amen, and omit 
 the like words in 
 ver. 20. 
 
 13 Some ancient au- 
 thorities omit ver, 
 25-27. Compare 
 the end of ch. xiv. 
 
 14 Gr. through. 
 
 15 Or, to the faith. 
 
 16 Some ancient 
 authorities omit to 
 whom. 
 
 17 Gr. unto the ages. 
 
 These chapters require little to be said here by way of explanation or comment, in 
 addition to what is said in the accompanying annotations. Neither chapter opens up 
 any new theme, nor contains any new teaching not already given in the preceding part 
 of the Epistle. There is, indeed, good reason to think that Chapter XVI. was a postscript 
 added after the letter was finished. The teaching of the Epistle really ends with Chapter 
 XIV., or perhaps we should rather say with the benediction in verse 13 of Chapter XV. 
 The verses up to and including that are merely a restatement of the principles of the 
 preceding chapters ; all that follow are in the nature of personal suggestion or message, 
 containing few or no general principles, either of spiritual or ethical truth. 
 
 Chapter XVI. is, however, notable for the illustration it affords of a phase of Paul's 
 character not often sufficiently regarded by students, — the personality of his affection. The 
 philo.sopher is interested in great principles ; the philanthropist and reformer in great 
 bodies of men ; the pastor and friend in individuals. Paul was a philanthropist more than 
 a philosopher ; and a pastor and friend not less than a philanthropi-st. He was not so 
 absorbed in great principles or in world-wide problems as to be indifferent to, careless of, or 
 oblivious concerning individuals. His work was largely a personal and individual work. 
 This is shown by his first ministry at Philippi, his discussion with individuals at Athens, 
 
Ciis. \\ ., XVI.] ROMANS. 235 
 
 his labors at Corinth, his method of teaching at Ephe.sus.' Hi- livtd in tmnli witli nun, 
 with individual men ; cured for them, knew them by name, watched over and j)rayed for 
 them, and rememliered tlieir names. He thus fultilleil the cnnilition.s of a <it»»\ slieplnnl : 
 "He calletii liis own sheep by name, and U-adeth them out."' 
 
 In Chapter XVI. he mentiou-s by name twenty-seven imlividuals, nf wlioni almost 
 nothing is known .save the simple fact that their names are embalmed here. And this, it will 
 be remembered, in a letter to a church which he had not yet visited. H(jw did he bear them 
 all so in mind I a mind so full, apparently, of great themes and great problems as to leave 
 no room for interest in individuals. How did he remendx-r that they were in Rome, and 
 think of each one and call each one by name l There is in this ntherwise seennngly barren 
 chajiter, a suggestion not only as to the true character of the Ajjostle as a true pastor and 
 shepherd and personal friend, but also as to the quality that always goes to make up a 
 truly successful religious teacher, — love not merely for truth, which may give zeal, without 
 charity, nor for men, which may give charity without brotherly kin<lne.ss, but for imlividual 
 men, which makes zeal for truth practical and enthusiasm for humanity personal and 
 sympathetic. 
 
 I HAVE now come to the close of my work in this Epistle to the Romans. The moi-e 
 minute re-examination of the Epistle, verse by verse, with the aid (if Lexicon, grammar, and 
 critical commentators of various schools, has only served to contirm the convictions as t»> 
 the teaching of this Epistle, which has been set forth in general terms in the Introduction, 
 more fully in the chapters which follow, and in minute detail of interpretation in the notes. 
 The.se principles seem to me to be confirmed by the doxology which chwes the Epistle, and 
 which, by its .spirit, justifies belief in its Pauline character, because it summarizes in one 
 compact and eloquent sentence the teaching of the Apo-stle's life. The Epistle begins with 
 a lament over the .separation of humanity from God and its consequent ilegeneracy and 
 moral death ; it traces the process of the world's redemption by God, in Christ, through 
 faith ; it ends with a Gloria to Him who is the Author and Fini-sher of the life of faith : 
 
 God is able to establish his children ; this is very glad tidings; this is the 
 
 MEANING OF THE HERALDING FORTH OF JeSUS AS THE MesSIAH ; THIf> IS THE REVEAL- 
 ING OF THE .SECRET OF CHARACTER, WHICH WAS HIDDEN IN THE PAST, BUT IS NOW MADK 
 MANIFEST, EVEN THAT WHICH FROM THE BEGINNING WA.S REVEALED IN THE WHITIN<JS OF 
 THE PROPHETS ; REVEALED ACCORDING TO THE WILL OF GoD UNTO THE OBEDIENCE WHICH 
 SPRINGS FROM FAITH AND UNTO ALL NATIONS, WHETHER JeW OR GeNTILE. To HiM, 
 THE ONLY WISE GOD, THROUGH JeSUS ChRIST, BE THE GLORY FOREVER. AmEN. 
 
 ' Aots 10 : 1^ ; 17 : 17 ; 18 : 7 : 11 : 19 : 8 ; 20 : 20. ' John 10 : H. 
 
226 
 
 HUMAN S. 
 
 [Chs. XV., XVI. 
 
 CHAPTERS XV. and XVI. 
 
 WE then that are strong ought to = bear the infirmi- 
 ties of the weak, and not to please ourselves. 
 
 2 Let every one of us please his neighbour'' lor kis 
 good to edification. 
 
 3 For even Christ '^ pleased not himself; but, as it is 
 written.'' The reproaches of them that reproached thee 
 fell on me. 
 
 4 For whatsoever' things were written aforetime 
 
 were written lor our learning, that we througli patience 
 and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. 
 
 5 Now the God of patience and consolation grant 
 you to be likeminded f one toward another, according 
 to Christ Jesus ; 
 
 6 That ye may with one? mind and one inouth 
 glorify Goi!, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 7 Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also 
 received ^ us, to the glory of God. 
 
 8 Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the 
 
 ach. 14:1 : Gal. 6; 2. 
 
 .bl Cor. 9: 19; Pbil. 2 : 4. 5....C John6: 38 d Ps. 69 : 9 e 1 Co 
 
 g Acts 4: 24, 32 hEph. 1 : 6. 
 
 -.10: n : 2Tim. 3:16, 17....fl Cor. 1:10. 
 
 CM. 15. VARIOUS EXHORTATIONS AND MESSAGES.— 
 The privilege op the strong : to bear the bur- 
 dens OF the weak.— Please, but onlt for profit- 
 ing. — The use of the Bible. — The center of unity: 
 Christ Jesus.— In Chkist Jesus, neither Jew nor 
 Gentile —A blessed benediction. — Some of Paul's 
 
 personal, qualities intimated : BOLDNE-^S ; MOD- 
 ESTY ; APOSTOLIC AMBITION ; PERSONAL SYMPATHY ; 
 DESIRE FOR SYMPATHY AND PRATER. 
 
 1-3. This chapter takes up and carries on the 
 subject of the preceding^ chapter. There should 
 be no break, yet it is difficult to suggest a better 
 point for the break than has been selected. "In 
 a style liku that of St. Paul, in which the divis- 
 ions of the subject are irregular, the distribu- 
 tion into chapters of convenient length is neces- 
 sarily artificial, and must often bear no reference 
 to the breaks in the sense." — {Jowdt.) — But we 
 that are able. By reason of strength of faith. 
 — Ought to bear the weaknesses of those 
 that are unable, and not to please our- 
 selves. To hear signifies here not merely to 
 endure, but to lift up, ;ind help to carry. The 
 literal meaning of t'le original is indicated by its 
 use in Matt. 3 : 11 ; Luke 7 : 14 ; Acts 21 : 35. Its 
 spiritual meaning by Gal. : 5. OufjJit implies 
 an indebtedness to the weak. Comp. Rom. 1: 14; 
 13 : 8. — Let every one of us please his 
 neighbor. Rather than himself. But this is 
 not the absolute' law, for one may by pleasing his 
 neighbor injure him. So the essential qualifying 
 clause is added. — For good unto edifying. 
 That is, building him up. Is it too much to say 
 tliat Paul here implies that those pleasures only 
 are legitimate which have some miniH^try to well- 
 being, and development of character, moral, 
 mental, or physical in them ? Comp. Gal. 1 : 10, 
 and 1 Cor. 10 : 33. For illustration of evil pleas- 
 ing, see Matt. 14 : 6 ; Mark 6 : 23.— For Christ 
 also pleased not himself. It illustrates the 
 habit of Paul's mind, that in such a connection 
 he turns intuitively to the example of Christ to 
 illustrate and enforce his teaching. Comp. 2 Cor. 
 8:9; Phil. 2 : 5, 6.— As it is written. The 
 quotation is from Psalms 69 : 9, in which the 
 Psalmist writes us a type of the Messiah. 
 
 4-7. For whatsoever things w^ere writ- 
 ten aforetime. That is, the whole O. T. 
 Scriptures were written for our instruction. 
 
 Comp. 2 Tim. o : 16, 17. — That through the 
 patience and the help of the writings Ave 
 might have hope. This verbal modification 
 in the translation gives more nearly Paul's mean- 
 ing. The writings or Scriptures, whose patience 
 and help are to give us hope, are those written 
 aforetime, and the comfort of them is not merely 
 consolation in sorrow, but strength and help for 
 every time of need ; Itotli these ideas are sug- 
 gested by the language of the original. By the 
 patience and help of the writings, Paul means 
 that which they aflord to him who rightly uses 
 them. — Now the God of patience and of 
 help. That is, the God who has infused i)a- 
 tience and help into the writings, the God from 
 whom all patience and help come. — Grant you 
 to be likeminded one toward another, 
 according to Christ Jesus. Comp. Rom. 
 13 : 16. Christ is presented as the pattern for the 
 disciple. — That ye may with one mind and 
 one mouth. That is, as one body in Chri>t. 
 Comp. Rom. 13 : 5. The unity of Christ's Church 
 glorifies the Father (John it : 21) ; and the divis- 
 ions of Christ's Church dishonor the Father (1 Or. 
 1 : 10-13.) — Ye may glorify the God and 
 Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. There can 
 be little question that this, not the translation of 
 the Old Version, correctly gives the Apostle's 
 meaning. — Wherefore receive one another. 
 Observe the connecting jjarticle •wherefore ; the 
 motive for receiving one another, is not to be 
 mere human sympathy, still less ecclesiastical 
 pride in the unity of the Church, but the glory 
 of God. — Even as Christ also received us to 
 the glory of God. Not merely for Christ so 
 received us; but rt.s Christ hath received us; as 
 he hath borne our infirmities, we are to bear one 
 another's infirmities. Comp. Isaiah 53 : 4 ; Matt. 
 8: 17. 
 
 8-13. There is some difficulty in interpreting 
 the logical connection of this paragraph with 
 what has preceded, but none in discovering its 
 moral connection. Paul is speaking to a churcli 
 in which there are two parties, a Jewish and a 
 Gentile; and he is seeking to break down the 
 partition wall between them, as a further means 
 of urging them to be of one mind, and charitably 
 regard each other's prejudices and practices.. 
 
Ohs. XV., XVI.] 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 227 
 
 circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm ' the 
 promises made unto the fathers ; 
 
 9 And that the (jeiitiles might glorify God for his 
 mercy ; as it is written, J For this cause 1 will confess 
 to thee among the Gentiles, and sing unto thy name. 
 
 10 And again he s;uth,'' Rejoice, ye Gentiles, with his 
 people. 
 
 11 And agjain,' Praise the Lord, all j'C Gentiles; and 
 laud him, all ye peo^lle. 
 
 12 And agam, lisaias saith,"' There shall be a root" of 
 Jesse, and he that shall rise to reign over the Gentiles ; 
 in lum shall the (icntiles trust. 
 
 13 Now the God of hope fill you with all" joy and 
 peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, 
 through the power of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 14 And 1 myself also am persuaded i* of you, my 
 brethren, that ye also are lull of goodness, filled with 
 all knowledge.'' able also to admonish one another. 
 
 15 Nevertheless, brethren, 1 have written the more 
 boldly unto you in some sort, as putting you in mind, 
 because' of the grace that is given to meol God. 
 
 i6 Tnat 1 should be the minister of Jesus Christ to 
 the Gentiles, ministering the gospel ol Ciod, that the 
 offering " up of the Gentiles nught l)e acceptable, being 
 sanctified' by the Holy (ihost. 
 
 17 I have therefore whereof I may glory" through 
 Jesus Christ in those things' which pertain to Gtxl. 
 
 18 Kor I will not dare to speak of any of those things 
 which Christ hath not wrought by me, to make" the 
 Gentiles obedient, by word and deed. 
 
 i Acts 3 : 25, 26.... j Ps. 18: « k Deut. »2 : 4.3 1 Pa. 117 : 1 ra Isa. 11 : 1, 10 n Rot. 6 : 5 ; 22 : 16 o ch. M: 17.. ..p Heb. 6:9! 
 
 2Pct. l:12....q 1 Cor. 8 : 1, 7, 19 r Eph. 3:7, 8 8 Isa. 66 : 20 t Acta 20: 32 u2 Cor. 12 : 1, etc v Hcb. &:1 w Qal. 2:8. 
 
 He fiills their thoughts to the fact that Christ 
 was by birth, education, and life-long obedience 
 a Jew, thus commending the Jew to the respect of 
 the Gentile ; bat adds that Christ was thus a Jew 
 in order that he might fnltill the law, and open 
 the kingdom of God to all believers, Gentile as 
 well as Jew, thus commenduu^ tiie Gentile to the 
 Jew. — Jesus Christ was made a servant of 
 circiiincisiou. Either subject to circumcision, 
 with all which that implies, or a minister to the 
 circumcised, that is, to the Jews. Both are per- 
 haps implied in the verse. At all events, both 
 arc true of Christ. He did, in fact, observe the 
 Jcwisli law ; and did also confine his j)ersonal 
 ministry to tlie Jewish people, both in his obedi- 
 ence and in the limitation of liia personal 
 ministry, he was a Jew. — For the truth of 
 God, that he niii;ht confirni the promises 
 to the Father. The reason why he thus ful- 
 filled the Jewish law, was that he might confirm 
 the promises wliich, by the quotations which 
 ft)llow, Paul shows to have included Gentile as 
 well as Jew. The argument is the same as that 
 implied in Gal, 4 : 4, 5. Jesus Christ was made 
 under the law that he might redeem from the 
 law, as (2 Cor. 5 : 21) he was made sin that he 
 miglit redeem from sin. — As it is written. 
 The quotations are from the Law, the Prophets, 
 and the Psalm<. The first being from Ps. 18 : 49 ; 
 the second from Dent. :W : 4;5 ; the third from 
 Ps. 117:1; the fourth from Isaiah 11 : 10.— \ow 
 the (iod of hope. That is, the God from 
 whom hope proceeds. — Fill you with all joy 
 and peace in faith. Not in believing some- 
 thing, but in the life of that faith which involves 
 fellowshi]) with God ; that faith which makes 
 him who possesses it strong in himself, but ten- 
 der and charitable toward those that are not 
 Hirong. — That ye may abound in hope, 
 through the power of the Holy Spirit. 
 TJiat is, by means of that divine power working 
 in you. and producing in your life the fruits of 
 the Spirit. Gal. 5:22,23. Comp. Phil. l:!t; 
 Col. 2:7; 2 Pet. 1 : 8. The problem of the 
 Christian must be, not to see with how little he 
 
 may come to Christ, but how abundant in grace 
 he may become in Christ. These verses bring 
 the instructions and exhortations of the Apos- 
 tle in this epistle to a close. What follows, 
 to the end of the succeeding chapter, is al- 
 most purely personal, the rest of this chapter 
 being a sort of epilogue, which Meyer thus char- 
 acterizes: "lie testifies his good confidence 
 toward the readers, and justifies liis in a partial 
 degree, bold writing by his Geniile-apostolic 
 calling (verses 14-16) and working (verses 17-21 ), which 
 latter had also been usually the hindcrance to his 
 coming personally to Rome (ver. 22). This ob- 
 servation leads him to his present plan of travel, 
 the execution of which will bring him, in the 
 course of his intended journey to Spain, to Rome, 
 after he has been at Jerusalem (vtrscs 2^-29). For 
 this impending journey he finally begs the pray- 
 ers of the Romans on his behalf (verses 30-3.-i), and 
 then concludes with a blessing (ver. 33). 
 
 14-21 . Paul, with that tact which is native to 
 one so full of human sympathy, as the Epistle 
 draws to a close, softens his seeming criticisms 
 of the Church at Rome, bearing testimony to his 
 confidence in the faith of those to whom liis 
 Epistle is addressed, and their :ibility to instruct 
 one another, and recalls to their mind tiie rea- 
 sons which have led him to write so boldly to 
 them: namely, the special grace of Aposlleship 
 to the Gentiles given him by God in his Apostolic 
 commission, and the sanction given to his work 
 by its blessed results through the accompanying 
 Spirit of God. This argument had proved con- 
 clusive before in removing scrui)le8 and imswer- 
 ing opponents. Acts 15 : 12, 13 ; Gal. 2 : 7-9. " The 
 train of thought in the Apostle's mind seems 
 rather to carry him back to his opj)onent8 at 
 Corinih, where he was then staying, than to bt; 
 directed to those whom he is addressing. The 
 delicate alternations of feeling in the verses 
 which follow, and the transition from hesitation 
 to boldness, remind us of several jjassages in the 
 Epistles to the Corinthians. 2 Cor. 10 : 15, 10. 
 There, too, he had been careful to guard :igain8t 
 appearing to intrude in another's vineyard. It 
 
;e28 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 [Chs. XV., XVI. 
 
 19 Through mighty signs'' and wonders, by the 
 power of the Spirit of God ; so that from Jerusalem, 
 and round about unto lUyricum, I y have fully preached 
 the gospel of Christ. 
 
 20 Yea, so have I strived to preach the gospel, not 
 where Christ was named,^ lest I should Build upon 
 another man's foundation : 
 
 21 But, as it is written,^ To whom he was not spoken 
 of, they shall see ; and they that have not heard shall 
 understand. 
 
 22 For which cause also I have been much hindered '' 
 from coming to you. 
 
 23 But now having no more place in these parts, and 
 having a great desire these many years to come unto 
 you ; 
 
 24 Whensoever I take my journey into Spain, I will 
 come to you : for I trust to see you in mj' journey, and 
 to be " brought on my way thitherward by you, if first 
 1 be somewhat filled with your company. 
 
 25 But now I go'' unto Jerusalem to minister unto 
 the saints. 
 
 26 F"or it hath pleased them of Macedonia^ and 
 Achaia to make a certain contribution for the poor 
 saints which are at Jerusalem. 
 
 27 It hath pleased them, verily ; and their debtors 
 they are. For if the Gentiles have been made par- 
 
 takers of their spiritual things, their dutyf is also to 
 minister unto them in carnal things. 
 
 28 When, therefore, 1 have performed this, and have 
 sealed to tliem this fruit,^ I will come by you into 
 Spain. 
 
 29 And I am sure that, when ■> I come unto you, I 
 shall come in the fulness of the blessing of the gospel 
 of Christ. 
 
 30 Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus 
 Christ's sake, and for the' love of the Spirit, that ye 
 striveJ together with me in your prayers to God for 
 me ; 
 
 31 That'' I may be delivered from them that do not 
 believe in Judaea ; and that my service which / have 
 lor Jerusalem may be accepted of the saints ; 
 
 32 That I may come unto you with joy by the will 
 of God, and may with you be refreshed. 
 
 33 Now the God of peace' be with you all. Amen. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 1 I commend unto you Phebe our sister, which is a 
 servant of the church which is at Cenchrea ; 
 
 2 That ye receive" her in the Lord, as becometh 
 saints, and that ye assist her in whatsoever business 
 she hath need of you : for she hath been a succourer 
 of many, and of myself also. 
 
 X Acts 19 : 11.... y ch. 1 : 14-16 z 2 Cor. 10 : 1»-16 a Isa. 52: 15 bl Thess. 2 : 18 c Acts 15 : 3 ; 3 John 6 d Acts 19 : 21 
 
 e2Cor.8:l;9:2, 12 f ICor. 9: ll....gPhil. 4 : 17. . . .h ch. 1 : 11, 12. . . .i Phil. 2: 1....J Col. 4: 12 k2 Thess. 3 : 2. . ..1 ICor.U::!.!; 
 
 Heb. 13: 20.... m Phil. 2 : 29. 
 
 was a feeling habitual to him." — (Jowett.) His 
 declaration in verse 20 affords an indication of 
 his own spirit, that of a pioneer in Gospel work; 
 but not a law nor an authoritative example for 
 others to follow. 
 
 22-29. Having fulfilled this pioneer work in 
 Asia Minor, he is an.xious to extend his ministry 
 to Home and bejond, and purposes, after he has 
 fulfilled the special ministry of benevolence laid 
 upon him at the time of writing of the Epistle, 
 to go into Spain, taking Rome on his way. 
 Whether Paul ever made this journey to Spain is 
 uncertain. There was a period subsequent to 
 his imprisonment in Rome about which Scripture 
 gives us no definite account. The record of his 
 journeying, in Acts, concludes with the com- 
 mencement of that imprisonment, and during 
 the two or three years, pos.sibly more, which in- 
 tervened between the expiration of this imprison- 
 ment, and his probable martyrdom under Nero, 
 he may have taken this journey into Spain ; but 
 there is no authentic narrative of it. 
 
 30-33. The intense humanity of Paul, his 
 own personal conflicts, his alternate fears and 
 hopes, and his need of, if not dependence upon, 
 the sympathies of others, are all illustrated by 
 these closing verses of the Epistle. For the 16th 
 chapter may properly be regarded in the light of 
 a postscript, and, indeed, was not improbably 
 written subsequently to the rest of the Epistle. 
 Compare with Paul's language here, Rom. 1 : 12 ; 
 1 Cor. 2 : ,3. Although he is charged with the 
 contributions of the Saints in Asia Minor for the 
 poorer brethren in Jerusalem (vers. 25, 26), he 
 fears that hatred of him among the Jews who 
 looked upon him as an apostate may extend to 
 
 the Jewish converts to Christianity, and make 
 his coming not accejitable. That his apprehen- 
 sion in this respect was not unreasonable, is 
 evident from the incident which befell him iu 
 Jerusalem (Acts n -. 20-30). 
 
 Ch. 16. PAUL AS A PERSONAL FRIEND. 
 
 This chapter is in the nature of a postcript, 
 and is almost wholly taken up with personal 
 greetings to individuals concerning whom very 
 little is known. None the less is the chapter 
 significant, since it shows that Paul was one by 
 no means so devoted to the elucidation of great 
 principles, as to be indifferent to individuals 
 with that indifference which often characterizes 
 a nature purely intellectual, nor even so devoted 
 to the well-being of the race as a race, as to 
 be indifferent to individuals with that indiffer- 
 ence which often characterizes the mere re- 
 former or ])hilanthropist. Like his Master, he 
 was individual in his ministry, each soul counted 
 for much ; and thus those whom he had once 
 known in spiritual companionship he did not, 
 apparently, easily forget. 
 
 1-16. Phebe our sister. "In all proba- 
 bility Phebe was the bearer of the Epistle as 
 stated in the subscription." — {Alforcl.) — 'The 
 servant of the Church. Rather, the deacon- 
 ess; an indication that this oflSce existed in the 
 Christian Church from Apostolic times. It cer- 
 tainly did from a very early period. — At Cen- 
 chrea. The port of Corinth.— Greet Pris- 
 cilla and Aquila. Little is known of them 
 beyond the reference to them here, and in Acts 
 
Ch. XV.. XVI.] 
 
 liOMANS. 
 
 i2\) 
 
 3 Greet Priscilla" ami A(iuilii. my helpepi in Christ 
 Jesus : 
 
 4 Who have tor my life laid down their own necks: 
 unto whom not only 1 Rive thanks, but also all the 
 churches of the Gentiles 
 
 5 Likewise .<,'''■<■' the church that is in their house." 
 Salute my wellbeloved Kpaenetus, who is the tirstfruits 
 of Achaia unto Christ. 
 
 6 Greet Mary, who bestowed much labour on us. 
 
 7 Salute .-Vndronicus and Junia, my kinsmen, and my 
 fellowprisoners, who are ol note among the apostles ; 
 who also were in Christ p before me. 
 
 8 Greet .\mplias, my beloved in the Lord. 
 
 9 Salute Urbane, our helper in Christ: and Stachys 
 my beloved. 
 
 10 Salute .Apelles. apjiroved in Christ. Salute them 
 which are ot Aristobulus' household. 
 
 11 Salute Herodion my kinsman. Greet them that 
 be of the household of Narcissus, which are in the 
 Lord. 
 
 12 Salute Tryphena and Tryphosa, who labour in 
 the Lord. Salute the beloved Persis, which laboured 
 much in the Lord. 
 
 13 Salute Rufus, chosen '' in the Lord ; and his 
 mother and mine. 
 
 14 Salute Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermas, Patrobas, 
 Hermes, and the brethren which are with them. 
 
 15 Salute I'hilologus, and Julia, Nereus, and his 
 sister, and Olympas, and all the saints which are with 
 them. 
 
 i() Salute one another with an holy kiss.' The 
 churches of Christ salute you. 
 
 17 Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which 
 cause divisions" and offences contrary lo the doctrine 
 which ye have learned : anil avoid them.' 
 
 18 Kor they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, bul their own belly ;" and by good words* and 
 fair speeches deceive the hearts of tne simple. 
 
 19 Kor your obedience is come abroad » unto all men. 
 I am glad therefore on your bchalt ; but yet 1 would 
 have you wise ' unto that which is good, and simple 
 c mcerning evil. 
 
 20 .And the God>' of jieace shall bruise' Satan under 
 your feet shortly." The grace •• of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ he with you. Amen. 
 
 21 Timotheus my worUfcllow, and Lucius, ami Jason, 
 and Sosipater, my kinsmen, salute you. 
 
 22. 1 lertius, who wrote this epistle, salute you ui 
 the Lord. 
 
 23 Gains •■ mine host, and of the whole church, salut- 
 eth you. Erastus"" the chand)erlain of the city salutetli 
 you, and yuartus a brother. - 
 
 24 The grace "= of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you 
 all. Amen. 
 
 ■ Acts 18 : 2, etc....o 1 Cor. 16 : 19 p Gal. 1 : 22.. ..q Eph. 1 : 4 r 1 Cor. 16 : 20 : 1 Pet. 5 : 14. ...s 1 Tim. 6 : .V5 
 
 t Matt. 18:17; 1 Cor. 5 .11; 2 Tlie.is. 3 :6, 14. . . .11 Phil. 3: 19 vCol. 2:4;2 Pet. 2 : 3 nch. 1:8 x Matt. 10 ; 16 . . .ych. 15 : 33. 
 
 z Gen. 3:15 a Rev. 12 : 10 b 1 Cor. 16 : 23, ttc.; Rev. 22 : 21 c 1 Cor. 1 : 14; 3 John 1. ...il Act.s 19:22 e ver. 20. 
 
 18:2. —The Church that is in their 
 
 house. Assemblies of Christians were held iu 
 private houses as the only possible meeting- 
 place. See Col. 4 : 15; Philemon 2. — £paene- 
 tus. None of llie names mentioned in verses 
 5-1.5 are mentioned elsewhere, and nothing is 
 known of them. It is worthy of note that 
 women took an aetive part in the work of the 
 Christian Church in these, its earliest days. 
 Mary, Juuia, and Priscilla are all names of 
 women. The word kinsman, in verses 7 and 11, 
 may signify either blood-relations or fellow- 
 countrymen. The phrase hw mother and mine, 
 in verse 13, indicates spiritual, not earthly rela- 
 tionship. The meaning is, his mother, whom I 
 love as mine. Jowett compares Christ's words 
 to John (John 19 : '.'7 1. — With a holy kiss. Kiss- 
 ing was customary with the Hebrews among 
 near relations of both sexes, and is continued in 
 the Kast with but little diminution to the i)rc.sent 
 day. In tlie Christian Church this mode of salu- 
 tation was also customary, and became at one 
 time a feature of the celebration of the Lord's 
 Supper. It is still maintained in certain ceremo- 
 nies in the Roman Catholic Church. 
 
 17- '-23. In these verses the Epistle reiterates 
 Paul's previous cautions. He writes as one 
 whose heart is so full of concern for the Church 
 at Rome that he knows not how to bring his let- 
 ter to an cnil. Having counseled them how by 
 charity to avoid divisions and offenses, he ad- 
 vises tiiem now to turn away from such as will 
 not act upon the i)riiieii)le of charity ; but so 
 serve their own self-indulgent passions as to i)ro- 
 duce divisions and oflensi'S, and llieii endeavor 
 to compensate therefor by good words and fair 
 
 speeches in lieu of good deeds and fair living. — 
 Wise unto that which is $;ood. Wise to 
 perceive that which is good ; single-hearted ; un- 
 divided in mind and purpo.se ; so as to have no 
 place for the lodgment of that which is eviL In 
 verse 20 the Apostle again concludes his Kpistle, 
 and then some further salutation occurred to 
 him, and he adds a further postscript. — Lucius 
 is probably the Lucius of Cyrene, mentioned in 
 Acts 13 : 1 ; Jason may be the one mentioned in 
 Acts 17 : 5 ; and Sosipater the one mentioned 
 in Acts 20 : 4 ; Tertius is evidently the amanu- 
 ensis to whom Paul dictated his Epistle, and who 
 perhaps seized a moment when Paul paused, to 
 hisert his own greetings. That Paul was accus- 
 tomed to write by dictation is indicated here, 
 and in 1 Cor. 10:21; (Jal. t>: 11; Col. 4 : IS ; 
 3 Thcss. 3 : 17. In verse 2:3 Paul resumes his 
 .salutations. — Gaiu.s is mentioned in 1 Cor. 1 : 14, 
 and would appear from the reference here to 
 have opened his house to the meetings of the Co- 
 rinthian Christians. — .Vn Erastus is mentioned 
 in Acts 1!) : 22, and 2 Tim 4 : ^0 ; but is not prob- 
 ably the one here described as chuiiiberlaiii or 
 treasurer of the city. — Of Quart us nothing is 
 kno\vn. 
 
 24''Z7. The genuineness of this Doxology 
 and its position at (he end of this Ej)istle have 
 been much questioned, some manuscripts placing 
 it at the end of chapter 14. It is true that Paul 
 never elsewhere cuds with such a Do.xology ; 
 but this does not constitute a conclusive, nor 
 even a serious argument against his use of it in 
 this Epistle. On the contrary, it is not at all im- 
 probable that he should have ended this, by far 
 the most elaborate of his letters, with a Dnx- 
 
ayu 
 
 KOMA^'8. 
 
 [Chs. XV., XVI. 
 
 25 Now to ' him that is of power to stablish you ac- 
 cording to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus 
 Cnrist, according to the revelation ^ of the mystery, 
 which was kept secret since the world began, 
 
 26 But now is made manifest, and by the scriptures 
 of the prophets, according to the commandment of the 
 
 everlasting God, made known to all nations'" for the 
 obedience of faith ; 
 
 27 To God ' only wise, ie glory, through Jesus Christ, 
 for ever. Amen. 
 
 Written to the Romans from Corinthus. and sent by 
 Phebe, servant of the church at Cenchrea. 
 
 f Eph. 3 : 20; Jude 24. ...g Eph. 1:9; Col. 1: 26, 27 h Matt. 28:19 i 1 Tim. 1:17; Jude 25. 
 
 ology more elaborate thao he used elsewhere. 
 As to the doubts which have been thrown over 
 the genuineness of the last two chapters of 
 Paul's Epistle to the Romans by the fact that 
 some manuscripts place this Doxology at the 
 close of the 14th, they are satisfactorily an- 
 Bwered by Jowett. 
 
 "The doubt respecting the position of the 
 Doxology has led to a suspicion of the genuine- 
 ness of the last two chapters. To such a suspi- 
 cion It may be replied : (1) that, if spurious, they 
 would be a forgerj' without a motive ; (2) that 
 thiy have every mark of genuineness which 
 characteristic thought and language can supply ; 
 (3) that they present at least one minute coinci- 
 
 dence with the history ; (4) that the occurrence 
 of the Doxology at the end of chapter 14 is no 
 proof that this was the end of the Epistle. The 
 Apostle, after intending to finish, may have be- 
 gun again, as in the Epistle to the Galatians ; (5) 
 that the close connection of the last verse of 
 chapter 14 and the beginning of chapter 15, is a 
 pve:fumption that the Doxology has slipped into 
 that place from some accidental cause." This 
 Doxology, whoever wrote it, and wherever in the 
 Epistle it originally belonged, sums up with won- 
 derful beauty and brevity the essential teaching 
 of the Epistle. See page 235 for a paraphrastic 
 rendering of it. 
 
BS2665 .A132 
 
 The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the 
 
 Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library 
 
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