Romans

THE EPISTLE OF PAUL THE APOSTLE TO THE

[1] [2]

[3] [4]

[5] [6]

[7] [8]

INTRODUCTION

THE

GENUINENESS of the Epistle to the Romans has never been

questioned. It has the unbroken testimony of all antiquity, up to

CLEMENT OF ROME, the apostle's "fellow laborer in the Gospel, whose

name was in the Book of Life"

(Php 4:3),

and who quotes from it in his undoubted Epistle to the Corinthians,

written before the close of the first century. The most searching

investigations of modern criticism have left it untouched.

WHEN and

WHERE this Epistle was written we have the means of

determining with great precision, from the Epistle itself compared with

the Acts of the Apostles. Up to the date of it the apostle had never

been at Rome

(Ro 1:11, 13, 15).

He was then on the eve of visiting Jerusalem with a pecuniary

contribution for its Christian poor from the churches of Macedonia and

Achaia, after which his purpose was to pay a visit to Rome on his way

to Spain

(Ro 15:23-28).

Now this contribution we know that he carried with him from Corinth, at

the close of his third visit to that city, which lasted three months

(Ac 20:2, 3; 24:17).

On this occasion there accompanied him from Corinth certain persons

whose names are given by the historian of the Acts

(Ac 20:4),

and four of these are expressly mentioned in our Epistle as being with

the apostle when he wrote it--Timotheus, Sosipater, Gaius, and Erastus

(Ro 16:21, 23).

Of these four, the third, Gaius, was an inhabitant of Corinth

(1Co 1:14),

and the fourth, Erastus, was "chamberlain of the city"

(Ro 16:23),

which can hardly be supposed to be other than Corinth. Finally,

Phœbebe, the bearer, as appears, of this Epistle, was a deaconess

of the Church at Cenchrea, the eastern port of Corinth

(Ro 16:1).

Putting these facts together, it is impossible to resist the

conviction, in which all critics agree, that Corinth was the place from

which the Epistle was written, and that it was despatched about the

close of the visit above mentioned, probably in the early spring of the

year 58.

The FOUNDER of this celebrated church is unknown.

That it owed its origin to the apostle Peter, and that he was its first

bishop, though an ancient tradition and taught in the Church of Rome as

a fact not to be doubted, is refuted by the clearest evidence, and is

given up even by candid Romanists. On that supposition, how are we to

account for so important a circumstance being passed by in silence by

the historian of the Acts, not only in the narrative of Peter's labors,

but in that of Paul's approach to the metropolis, of the deputations of

Roman "brethren" that came as far as Appii Forum and the Three Taverns

to meet him, and of his two years' labors there

(Ac 28:15, 30)?

And how, consistently with his declared principle--not to build on

another man's foundation

(Ro 15:20)

--could he express his anxious desire to come to them that he might

have some fruit among them also, even as among other Gentiles

(Ro 1:13),

if all the while he knew that they had the apostle of the circumcision

for their spiritual father? And how, if so, is there no salutation to

Peter among the many in this Epistle? or, if it may be thought that he

was known to be elsewhere at that particular time, how does there occur

in all the Epistles which our apostle afterwards wrote from Rome not

one allusion to such an origin of the church at Rome? The same

considerations would seem to prove that this church owed its origin to

no prominent Christian laborer; and this brings us to the

much-litigated question.

For WHAT

CLASS of Christians was this Epistle principally

designed--Jewish or Gentile? That a large number of Jews and Jewish

proselytes resided at this time at Rome is known to all who are

familiar with the classical and Jewish writers of that and the

immediately subsequent periods; and that those of them who were at

Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost

(Ac 2:10),

and formed probably part of the three thousand converts of that day,

would on their return to Rome carry the glad tidings with them, there

can be no doubt. Nor are indications wanting that some of those

embraced in the salutations of this Epistle were Christians already of

long standing, if not among the earliest converts to the Christian

faith. Others of them who had made the apostle's acquaintance

elsewhere, and who, if not indebted to him for their first knowledge of

Christ, probably owed much to his ministrations, seemed to have charged

themselves with the duty of cherishing and consolidating the work of

the Lord in the capital. And thus it is not improbable that up to the

time of the apostle's arrival the Christian community at Rome had been

dependent upon subordinate agency for the increase of its numbers,

aided by occasional visits of stated preachers from the provinces; and

perhaps it may be gathered from the salutations of the last chapter

that it was up to that time in a less organized, though far from less

flourishing state, than some other churches to whom the apostle had

already addressed Epistles. Certain it is, that the apostle writes to

them expressly as a Gentile Church

(Ro 1:13, 15; 15:15, 16);

and though it is plain that there were Jewish Christians among them,

and the whole argument presupposes an intimate acquaintance on the part

of his readers with the leading principles of the Old Testament, this

will be sufficiently explained by supposing that the bulk of them,

having before they knew the Lord been Gentile proselytes to the Jewish

faith, had entered the pale of the Christian Church through the gate of

the ancient economy.

It remains only to speak briefly of the

PLAN and

CHARACTER Of this

Epistle. Of all the undoubted Epistles of our apostle, this is the most

elaborate, and at the same time the most glowing. It has just as much

in common with a theological treatise as is consistent with the freedom

and warmth of a real letter. Referring to the headings which we have

prefixed to its successive sections, as best exhibiting the progress of

the argument and the connection of its points, we here merely note that

its first great topic is what may be termed

the legal relation of man to God as a violator of His holy law, whether

as merely written on the heart, as in the case of the heathen, or, as

in the case of the Chosen People, as further known by external

revelation; that it next treats of that legal relation as wholly

reversed through believing connection with the Lord Jesus Christ; and

that its third and last great topic is the new life which accompanies

this change of relation, embracing at once a blessedness and a

consecration to God which, rudimentally complete already, will open, in

the future world, into the bliss of immediate and stainless fellowship

with God. The bearing of these wonderful truths upon the condition and

destiny of the Chosen People, to which the apostle next comes, though

it seem but the practical application of them to his kinsmen according

to the flesh, is in some respects the deepest and most difficult part

of the whole Epistle, carrying us directly to the eternal springs of

Grace to the guilty in the sovereign love and inscrutable purposes of

God; after which, however, we are brought back to the historical

platform of the visible Church, in the calling of the Gentiles, the

preservation of a faithful Israelitish remnant amidst the general

unbelief and fall of the nation, and the ultimate recovery of all

Israel to constitute, with the Gentiles in the latter day, one catholic

Church of God upon earth. The remainder of the Epistle is devoted to

sundry practical topics, winding up with salutations and outpourings of

heart delightfully suggestive.