St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans: A Practical Exposition. Vol. I

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Gore Charles. St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans: A Practical Exposition. Vol. I

PREFACE

Introduction

CHAPTER I. 1-7. Salutation

CHAPTER I. 8-17. St. Paul's introduction

DIVISION I. (CHAPTERS I. 18-III. 20.) The universality of sin and condemnation

DIVISION I. § I. (CHAPTER I. 18-32) Judgement on the Gentile world

DIVISION I. § 2. CHAPTER II. 1-29. Judgement on the Jews

DIVISION I. § 3. CHAPTER III. 1-8. Jewish objections

DIVISION I. § 4. CHAPTER III. 9-20. Sin and condemnation universal

DIVISION II. CHAPTERS III. 21-IV. 25. Justification by faith only

DIVISION II. § 2. CHAPTER IV. The true seed of Abraham

DIVISION III. CHAPTERS V-VIII. The accepted life or the moral consequences of justification

DIVISION III. § 2. CHAPTER V. 12-21. The Second Adam

DIVISION III. § 3. CHAPTER VI. 1-14. The Christian life a living by dying

DIVISION III. § 4. CHAPTER VI. 15-23. The perfect freedom is God's service

DIVISION III. § 5. CHAPTER VII. 1-6. Freedom from the law by union with Christ

DIVISION III. § 6. CHAPTER VII. 7-25. The function and failure of the law

DIVISION III. § 7. CHAPTER VIII. 1-11. Life in the Spirit

DIVISION III. § 8. CHAPTER VIII. 12-17. The life of sonship

DIVISION III. § 9. CHAPTER VIII. 18-30. The hope of the creation

DIVISION III. § 10. CHAPTER VIII. 31-39. Christian assurance

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St. Paul's great Epistle to the Romans was written, as may be quite confidently asserted, from Corinth, during the second visit to Greece recorded in the Acts1, i.e. in the beginning of the year commonly reckoned 58, but perhaps more correctly 56 A.D. – the year following the writing of the Epistles to the Corinthians. The reasons for this confident statement, and indeed for all that needs to be said about the circumstances under which St. Paul wrote and the conditions of Christianity at Rome, become apparent chiefly in connexion with the later parts of the epistle which are not included in this volume. They shall therefore be omitted here, and we will content ourselves for the moment with a very brief statement of the results in which scholars are now finding, as it would seem, final agreement.

The existence of Christians at Rome was due not to any apostolic founding, for no apostle appears yet to have visited Rome, but to the sort of 'quiet and fortuitous filtration2' of Christians from various parts of the empire to its great centre which must naturally have taken place; for from all quarters there was a tendency to Rome. 'Some from Palestine, some from Corinth, some from Ephesus and other parts of Proconsular Asia, possibly some from Tarsus, and more from the Syrian Antioch, there was in the first instance, as we may believe, nothing concerted in their going; but when once they arrived in the metropolis, the freemasonry common among Christians would soon make them known to each other, and they would form, not exactly an organized Church' – that may well have been the result of the later presence of St. Paul and St. Peter – 'but such a fortuitous assemblage of Christians as was only waiting for the advent of an apostle to constitute one3.' Among this assemblage of Christians it appears evident from St. Paul's language4 that there must have been Jews as well as Gentiles; but the dominant character of the church was Gentile5. It is perhaps only putting this in another way to say that there would have been among the Roman Christians elements of hostility to St. Paul and his teaching, but Christianity as St. Paul taught it would have been in the ascendant. And probably St. Paul's special informants about affairs there would have been his special friends, Prisca and Aquila6.

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It is of the utmost importance to notice that this is the only attitude of man towards God which corresponds with the ultimate facts of human nature, as science and philosophy are bound to represent them. Man is, in fact, an absolutely dependent being, physically and spiritually. His virtue must lie, not in originativeness, but in correspondence. Supposing him a free agent in God's universe, his freedom can only consist in a power to correspond with divine forces and laws intelligently and voluntarily; or on the other hand to disturb the divine order of creation in a measure by wilfulness and sin. Now faith is simply the faculty of loving correspondence with God. 'Justification by faith' is the only conception of justification which is possible in the light of the root facts of human nature. But of course the practical appeal of this conclusion to the heart and will is immensely increased, if men can be shown to have acted as if they were independent and to have found it a failure; if life lived in independence of God, with God as it were withdrawn from the actual scene of life to its far-off horizon, is found to have resulted in havoc, weakness and despair. So, in fact, St. Paul's doctrine of the true means of justification is based on an appeal, not so much to the ultimate constitution of our human nature as to the experienced results of our independence of God, to the facts of sin, whether among Gentiles or Jews.

4. Finally, the principle of justification by faith is contrasted with that of justification by works of the law in the view which it involves of the character of God. The law, as St. Paul interprets it, views God as a lord and taskmaster. Faith presents Him as the Father of our spirits, always waiting upon us with His eternal, unchangeable love; bearing with us; dealing with us even on a false basis which by our sins we have forced upon Him, in order to bring us to a recognition of the true; anyway acting or withholding action, if by any means we can be won to recognize His true character and our true life.

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