_PEACE, LOVE, AND JOY FOR THE JUSTIFIED_
ROMANS v. 1-11
We reached a pause in the Apostle's thought with the close of the last
paragraph. We may reverently imagine, as in spirit we listen to his
dictation, that a pause comes also in his work; that he is silent, and
Tertius puts down the pen, and they spend their hearts awhile on
worshipping recollection and realization. The Lord delivered up; His
people justified; the Lord risen again, alive for evermore--here was
matter for love, joy, and wonder.
But the Letter must proceed, and the argument has its fullest and most
wonderful developments yet to come. It has now already expounded the
tremendous _need_ of justifying mercy, for every soul of man. It has
shewn how _faith_, always and only, is the way to appropriate that
mercy--the way of God's will, and manifestly also in its own nature
the way of deepest fitness. We have been allowed to see faith in
illustrative action, in Abraham, who by faith, absolutely, without the
least advantage of traditional privilege, received justification, with
the vast concurrent blessings which it carried. Lastly we have heard
St Paul dictate to Tertius, for the Romans and for us, those
summarizing words (iv. 25) in which we now have God's own certificate
of the triumphant efficacy of that Atoning Work, which sustains the
Promise in order that the Promise may sustain us believing.
We are now to approach the glorious theme of the Life of the
Justified. This is to be seen not only as a state whose basis is the
reconciliation of the Law, and whose gate and walls are the covenant
Promise. It is to appear as a state warmed with eternal Love;
irradiated with the prospect of glory. In it the man, knit up with
Christ his Head, his Bridegroom, his all, yields himself with joy to
the God who has received him. In the living power of the heavenly
Spirit, who perpetually delivers him from himself, he obeys, prays,
works, and suffers, in a liberty which is only not yet that of heaven,
and in which he is maintained to the end by Him who has planned his
full personal salvation from eternity to eternity.
It has been the temptation of Christians sometimes to regard the truth
and exposition of Justification as if there were a certain hardness
and as it were dryness about it; as if it were a topic rather for the
schools than for life. If excuses have ever been given for such a
view, they must come from other quarters than the Epistle to the
Romans. Christian teachers, of many periods, may have discussed
Justification as coldly as if they were writing a law-book. Or again
they may have examined it as if it were a truth terminating in itself,
the Omega as well as the Alpha of salvation; and then it has been
misrepresented, of course. For the Apostle certainly does not discuss
it drily; he lays deep indeed the foundations of Law and Atonement,
but he does it in the manner of a man who is not drawing the plan of a
refuge, but calling his reader from the tempest into what is not only
a refuge but a home. And again he does not discuss it in isolation. He
spends his fullest, largest, and most loving expositions on its
intense and vital connexion with concurrent truths. He is about now to
take us, through a noble vestibule, into the sanctuary of the life of
the accepted, the life of union, of surrender, of the Holy Ghost.
[Sidenote: Ver. 1.] =Justified therefore on terms of faith,[63] we
have peace[64] towards our (τὸν) God,= we possess in regard of Him
the "quietness and assurance" of acceptance, =through our Lord Jesus
Christ,= thus delivered up, and raised up, for us; [Sidenote: Ver. 2.]
=through whom we have actually (καὶ) found[65] our (τὴν) introduction,=
our free admission, =by our (τῇ) faith, into this grace,= this
unearned acceptance for Another's sake, =in which we stand,= instead
of falling ruined, sentenced, at the tribunal. =And we exult,= not
with the sinful "boasting"[66] of the legalist, =but in hope=
(literally, "_on hope_," ἐπ' ἐλπίδι, as _reposing on_ the promised
prospect) =of the glory of our (τοῦ) God,= the light of the heavenly
vision and fruition of our Justifier, and the splendour of an eternal
service of Him in that fruition. [Sidenote: Ver. 3.] =Nor only so, but
we exult too in our tribulations,= with a better fortitude than the
Stoic's artificial serenity, =knowing that the tribulation works out,
develops, patient persistency,[67]= as it occasions proof after proof
of the power of God in our weakness, and thus generates _the habit_ of
reliance; =and then (δὲ) the patient persistency= develops =proof,=
brings out in experience, as a proved fact, that through Christ we are
not what we were; =and then the proof= develops =hope,= solid and
definite expectation of continuing grace and final glory, and, in
particular, of the Lord's Return; =and the hope does not shame,= does
not disappoint; it is a hope sure and steadfast, for it is the hope of
those who now know that they are objects of eternal Love; =because the
love of our (τοῦ) God has been poured out in our hearts;= His love to
us has been as it were diffused through our consciousness, poured out
in a glad experience as rain from the cloud, as floods from the rising
spring,[68] =through the Holy Spirit that was given to us.=
Here first is mentioned explicitly, in the Apostle's argument, (we do
not reckon ch. i. 4 as in the argument,) the blessed Spirit, the Lord
the Holy Ghost. Hitherto the occasion for the mention has hardly
arisen. The considerations have been mainly upon the personal guilt of
the sinner, and the objective fact of the Atonement, and the exercise
of faith, of trust in God, as a genuine personal act of man. With a
definite purpose, we may reverently think, the discussion of faith has
been kept thus far clear of the thought of anything lying behind
faith, of any "grace" _giving_ faith. For whether or no faith is the
gift of God, it is most certainly the act of man; none should assert
this more decidedly than those who hold (as we do) that Eph. ii. 8[69]
_does_ teach that where saving faith is, it is there because God has
"given" it. But how does He "give" it? Not, surely, by implanting a
new faculty, but by so opening the soul to God in Christ that the
divine magnet effectually draws the man to a willing repose upon such
a God. But the man does this, as an act, himself. He trusts God as
genuinely, as personally, as much with his own faculty of trust, as he
trusts a man whom he sees to be quite trustworthy and precisely fit to
meet an imperative need. Thus it is often the work of the evangelist
and the teacher to insist upon the _duty_ rather than the _grace_ of
faith; to bid men rather thank God for faith _when they have believed_
than wait for the sense of an afflatus before believing. And is this
not what St Paul does here? At this point of his argument, _and not
before_, he reminds the believer that his possession of peace, of
happiness, of hope, has been attained and realized not, ultimately, of
himself but through the working of the Eternal Spirit. The insight
into mercy, into a propitiation provided by divine love, and so into
the holy secret of the divine love itself, has been given him by the
Holy Ghost, who has taken of the things of Christ, and shewn them to
him, and secretly handled his "heart" so that the fact of the love of
God is a part of experience at last. The man has been told of his
great need, and of the sure and open refuge, and has stepped through
its peaceful gate in the act of trusting the message and the will of
God. Now he is asked to look round, to look back, and bless the hand
which, when he was outside in the naked field of death, opened his
eyes to see, and guided his will to choose.
What a retrospect it is! Let us trace it from the first words of this
paragraph again. First, here is the _sure fact_ of our acceptance, and
the reason of it, and the method. "_Therefore_"; let not that word be
forgotten. Our Justification is no arbitrary matter, whose
causelessness suggests an illusion, or a precarious peace.
"_Therefore_"; it rests upon an antecedent, in the logical chain of
divine facts. We have read that antecedent, ch. iv. 25; "Jesus our
Lord was given up because of our transgressions, and was raised up
because of our justification." We assented to that fact; we have
accepted Him, only and altogether, in this work of His. _Therefore_ we
are justified, δικαιωθέντες,[70] placed by an act of divine Love,
working in the line of divine Law, among those whom the Judge accepts,
that He may embrace them as Father. Then, in this possession of the
"peace" of our acceptance, thus _led in_ (προσαγωγή), through the
gate of the promise, with the footstep of faith, we find inside our
Refuge far more than merely safety. We look up from within the blessed
walls, sprinkled with atoning blood, and we see above them the hope of
glory, invisible outside. And we turn to our present life within them
(for all our life is to be lived within that broad sanctuary now), and
we find resources provided there for a present as well as a
prospective joy. We address ourselves to the discipline of the place;
for it _has_ its discipline; the refuge is home, but it is also
school; and we find, when we begin to try it, that the discipline is
full of joy. It brings out into a joyful consciousness the power we
now have, in Him who has accepted us, in Him who is our Acceptance, to
suffer and to serve in love. Our life has become a life not of peace
only but of the hope which animates peace, and makes it flow "as a
river." From hour to hour we enjoy the never-disappointing hope of
"grace for grace," new grace for the next new need; and beyond it, and
above it, the certainties of the hope of glory. To drop our metaphor
of the sanctuary for that of the pilgrimage, we find ourselves upon a
pathway, steep and rocky, but always mounting into purer air, and so
as to shew us nobler prospects; and at the summit--the pathway will be
continued, and transfigured, into the golden street of the City; the
same track, but within the gate of heaven.
Into all this the Holy Ghost has led us. He has been at the heart of
the whole internal process. He made the thunder of the Law articulate
to our conscience. He gave us faith by manifesting Christ. And, in
Christ, He has "poured out in our hearts the love of God."
For now the Apostle takes up that word, "_the Love of God_," and holds
it to our sight, and we see in its pure glory no vague abstraction,
but the face, and the work, of Jesus Christ. Such is the context into
which we now advance. He is reasoning on; "_For_ Christ, when we still
were weak." He has set justification before us in its majestic
lawfulness. But he has now to expand its mighty love, of which the
Holy Ghost has made us conscious in our hearts. We are to see in the
Atonement not only a guarantee that we have a valid title to a just
acceptance. We are to see in it the love of the Father and the Son, so
that not our security only but our bliss may be full.
[Sidenote: Ver. 6.] =For Christ, we still being weak,= (gentle
euphemism for our utter impotence, our guilty inability to meet the
sinless claim of the Law of God,) =in season,= in the fulness of time,
when the ages of precept and of failure had done their work, and man
had learnt something to purpose of the lesson of self-despair, =for
the ungodly--died.= "_For the ungodly_," ὑπὲρ ἀσεβῶν, "_concerning
them_," "with reference to them," that is to say, in this context of
saving mercy, "in their interests, for their rescue,[71] as their
propitiation." "_The ungodly_," or, more literally still, without the
article, "_ungodly ones_"; a designation general and inclusive for
those for whom He died. Above (iv. 5) we saw the word used with a
certain limitation, as of the worst among the sinful. But here,
surely, with a solemn paradox, it covers the whole field of the Fall.
The ungodly here are not the flagrant and disreputable only; they are
all who are not in harmony with God; the potential as well as the
actual doers of grievous sin. For them "_Christ died_"; not "lived,"
let us remember, but "died." It was a question not of example, nor of
suasion, nor even of utterances of divine compassion. It was a
question of law and guilt; and it was to be met only by the
death-sentence and the death-fact; such death as HE died of whom, a
little while before, this same Correspondent had written to the
converts of Galatia (iii. 13); "Christ bought us out from the curse of
the Law, when He became a curse for us." All the untold emphasis of
the sentence, and of the thought, lies here upon those last words,
upon each and all of them, "_for ungodly ones--He died_," ὑπὲρ
ἀσεβῶν--ἀπέθανε. The sequel shews this to us; he proceeds:
[Sidenote: Ver. 7.] =For scarcely,= with difficulty, and in rare
instances, =for a just man will one die;= "_scarcely_," he will not
say "_never_," =for for the good man,= the man answering in some
measure the ideal of gracious and not only of legal goodness,[72]
=perhaps someone actually ventures to die.= [Sidenote: Ver. 8.] =But
God commends,= as by a glorious contrast (συνίστησι), =His love,=
"_His_" as above all current human love, "_His own love_," τὴν
Ἑαυτοῦ, =towards us, because while we were still sinners,= and as
such repulsive to the Holy One, =Christ for us did die.=
We are not to read this passage as if it were a statistical assertion
as to the facts of human love and its possible sacrifices. The moral
argument will not be affected if we are able, as we shall be, to
adduce cases where unregenerate man has given even his life to save
the life of one, or of many, to whom he is not emotionally or
naturally attracted. All that is necessary to St Paul's tender plea
for the love of God is the certain fact that the cases of death even
on behalf of one who _morally deserves_ a great sacrifice are
relatively very, very few. The thought of merit is the ruling
thought in the connexion. He labours to bring out the sovereign
Lovingkindness, which went even to the length and depth of death, by
reminding us that, whatever moved it, it was not moved, even in the
lowest imaginable degree, by any merit, no, nor by any "congruity," in
us. And yet we were sought, and saved. He who planned the salvation,
and provided it, was the eternal Lawgiver and Judge. He who loved us
is Himself eternal Right, to whom all our wrong is unutterably
repellent. What then is He as Love, who, being also Right, stays not
till He has given His Son to the death of the Atonement?
So we have indeed a warrant to "believe the love of God" (1 John
iv. 16). Yes, to believe it. We look within us, and it is incredible.
If we have really seen ourselves, we have seen ground for a sorrowful
conviction that He who is eternal Right must view us with aversion.
But if we have really seen Christ, we have seen ground for--not
feeling at all, it may be, at this moment, but--believing that God is
Love, and loves us. What is it to believe Him? It is to take Him at
His word; to act altogether not upon our internal consciousness but
upon His warrant. We look at the Cross, or rather, we look at the
crucified Lord Jesus in His Resurrection; we read at His feet these
words of His Apostle; and we go away to take God at His assurance that
we, unlovely, are beloved.
"My child," said a dying French saint, as she gave a last embrace to
her daughter, "I have loved you because of what you are; my heavenly
Father, to whom I go, has loved me _malgré moi_."
And how does the divine reasoning now advance? "From glory to glory";
from acceptance by the Holy One, who is Love, to present and endless
preservation in His Beloved One. [Sidenote: Ver. 9.] =Therefore much
more, justified now in His blood,= as it were "_in_" its laver of
ablution, or again "_within_" its circle of sprinkling as it marks the
precincts of our inviolable sanctuary, =we shall be kept safe through
Him,= who now lives to administer the blessings of His death, =from
the wrath,= the wrath of God, in its present imminence over the head
of the unreconciled, and in its final fall "in that day."
[Sidenote: Ver. 10.] =For if, being enemies,= with no initial love to
Him who is Love, nay, when we were hostile to His claims, and as such
subject to the hostility of His Law, =we were reconciled to our (τῷ)
God[73] through the death of His Son,= (God coming to judicial peace
with us, and we brought to submissive peace with Him,) =much more,
being reconciled, we shall be kept safe in His life,= in the life of
the Risen One who now lives for us, and in us, and we in Him.
[Sidenote: Ver. 11.] =Nor only so, but= we shall be kept =exulting too
in our (τοῦ) God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom now we
have received[74] this (τὴν) reconciliation.=
Here, by anticipation, he indicates already the mighty issues of the
act of Justification, in our life of Union with the Lord who died for
us, and lived again. In the sixth chapter this will be more fully
unfolded; but he cannot altogether reserve it so long. As he has
advanced from the law-aspect of our acceptance to its love-aspect, so
now with this latter he gives us at once the life-aspect, our
vital incorporation with our Redeemer, our part and lot in His
resurrection-life. Nowhere in this whole Epistle is that subject
expounded so fully as in the later Epistles, Colossians and Ephesians;
the Inspirer led His servant all over that region then, in his Roman
prison, but not now. But He had brought him into the region from the
first, and we see it here present to his thought, though not in the
foreground of his discourse. "_Kept safe in His life_"; not "_by_" His
life, but "_in_" His life. We are livingly knit to Him the Living One.
From one point of view we are accused men, at the bar, wonderfully
transformed, by the Judge's provision, into welcomed and honoured
friends of the Law and the Lawgiver. From another point of view we are
dead men, in the grave, wonderfully vivified, and put into a spiritual
connexion with the mighty life of our Lifegiving Redeemer. The aspects
are perfectly distinct. They belong to different orders of thought.
Yet they are in the closest and most genuine relation. The Justifying
Sacrifice procures the possibility of our regeneration into the Life
of Christ. Our union by faith with the Lord who died and lives brings
us into actual part and lot in His justifying merits. And our part and
lot in those merits, our "acceptance in the Beloved," assures us again
of the permanence of the mighty Love which will maintain us in our
part and lot "in His life." This is the view of the matter which is
before us here.
Thus the Apostle meets our need on every side. He shews us the holy
Law satisfied for us. He shews us the eternal Love liberated upon us.
He shews us the Lord's own Life clasped around us, imparted to us;
"our life is hid in God with Christ, who is our Life" (Col. iii. 3,
4). Shall we not "exult in God through Him"?
And now we are to learn something of that great Covenant-Headship, in
which we and He are one.
DETACHED NOTES TO CHAPTER XII
I
Εἰρήνην ἔχομεν, "_We have peace_": Εἰρήνην ἔχωμεν, "_Let us have
peace_." Which did St Paul write? On the whole, after long thought
upon the evidence, we decide for the former reading. The documentary
witness is strong for the latter. For those who place the great Uncial
manuscripts in the place of practical decision, ἔχωμεν has a clear
verdict in its favour. But the other class of copies, the Cursive,
later on the whole than the Uncials, but probably often representing
correction rather than corruption, are greatly in favour of ἔχομεν.
The evidence of ancient Versions, and of quotations by early Christian
writers, inclines on the whole for ἔχωμεν. But in the study of a
reading the argument and context of course claim attention; for most
surely the original reading, whatever it was, was _pertinent_. Now
here the question of _pertinence_ seems to us to lead to a decided
verdict for ἔχομεν. The Apostle is engaged here altogether with
assertion, instruction; exhortation is to come later. Through this
whole paragraph he does nothing but assert facts and principles. Is it
to be believed that he begins it with a _disjointed_ exhortation?
In _itself_ the exhortation would bear a meaning perfectly
intelligible. "_Let us have peace_" would mean "_Let us enjoy peace_."
So ἔχωμεν χάριν, Heb. xii. 28, means, practically, "_Let us use
grace_." Neither exhortation would mean that we _do not yet possess_,
in respect of the Lord's gift, "peace" and "grace" respectively. But,
we repeat it, the context here seems decisive against the presence
_here_ of any exhortation. We want, logically, assertion.
The interchange of ω and ο in manuscripts is, as a fact, frequent.
See the case carefully considered, and decided for ἔχομεν, in Dr
Scrivener's _Introduction to the Criticism of the N. T._, p. 625.
II
Καταλλάσσειν, Καταλλαγή. It is sometimes held that these words
denote "reconciliation" in the sense of man's laying aside his
distrust, reluctance, resistance towards God, not of God's laying
aside His holy displeasure against man; and that for this latter idea,
that of persuading an offended superior to grant peace, we should need
the words διαλλάσσεσθαι (which we have Matt. v. 24, and in the Lxx.
in _e.g._ 1 Sam. xxix. 4, where the English has, "Wherewith should he
reconcile himself to his master?") and διαλλαγὴ (which does not
occur in the N. T.). But καταλλαγὴ (and its verb) is as a fact used
in the Greek of the Apocrypha in connexions where the thought is just
that of the clemency of a king, induced to pardon. See _e.g._ 2 Macc.
v. 20, where the English Version reads, "the great Lord _being
reconciled_ (ἐν τῇ καταλλαγῇ τοῦ μεγάλου Δεσπότου) [the temple] was
set up." So 2 Macc. i. 5, where we have the prayer (English Version),
"God be _at one_ with you," καταλλαγείη ὑμῖν. Thus no elaborate
distinction can safely be drawn between the two sets of compounds. And
there is no place in the N. T. where the meaning, _conciliation of an
offended party_, would not well suit καταλλάσσεσθαι, etc. The
present passage (Rom. v. 10, 11) would be practically meaningless
otherwise. The whole thought is of the divine mercy, providing a way
for accepting grace. To "_receive_ τὴν καταλλαγὴν" is a phrase
which, by its very form as well as its connexion, points to the
thought not of reluctance overcome but mercy found.
The word "_atonement_" (A.V., ver. 11) needs remark. It seems certain
that its derivation is "at-one-ment" (See Skeat, _Etymol. Dict._,
s.v.), though an etymological connexion with _ver-söhnen_, (Dutch,
_ver-zoenen_) has been maintained (see Hofmeyr, _The Blessed Life_, p.
25). But as Trench remarks, (_Synonyms of the N. T._, s.v.
καταλλαγὴ,) the usage of English has now long attached the idea of
_propitiation_ (ἱλασμὸς) to the word "_atonement_"; which should
therefore be avoided as a rendering for καταλλαγή.
[63] Ἐκ πίστως: "_out of faith_." The phrase has often met us in
the Greek before. It calls for various renderings in various contexts;
that given above seems best to paraphrase it here.
[64] See detached note, p. 140, for an account of the various reading
here, ἔχωμεν εἰρήνην, "_Let us_ have peace."
[65] Ἐσχήκαμεν: "_we have had_," "_we have got_."
[66] Καυχᾶσθαι, καύχησις: see above ii. 23, iii. 27, iv. 2.
[67] Ὑπομονὴ is more than "_patience_." By usage it implies "patience
_in action_"; "_perseverance_."
[68] It is quite possible, of course, to explain ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ Θεοῦ,
grammatically, to mean "_our love to God_." And some, more mystically,
explain it of God's faculty of love conveyed to us that we, with it,
may love Him. But the following context, especially ver. 8, is clearly
against such expositions. Verses 6-11 are in fact an explanation of
the thought of ver. 5.
[69] The writer ventures to refer to his Commentary on Ephesians in
_The Cambridge Bible_.
[70] Observe the aorist form of the participle.
[71] Ὑπὲρ is literally "_over_," and in itself imports simply
"_concern with_"; as when we say that a man is busy "over" an
important matter; as it were stooping over it, attending to it. Its
special references depend altogether upon context and usage. _In
itself_ it neither teaches nor denies the doctrine of a vicarious and
substitutionary work; ἀητὶ is the preposition which guarantees as
true that great aspect of the Lord's death. But ὑπὲρ of course
amply allows for such an _application_ of its meaning, where the
context suggests the idea.
[72] We incline more than formerly, though still with some doubt, to
see a rising climax here, as indicated in the paraphrase, from
δίκαιος to ὁ ἀγαθός.
[73] On the meaning of καταλλαγή see detached note, p. 141.
[74] Ἐλάβομεν: but the English perfect best represents the idea.