'To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be
saints.'--ROMANS i. 7.
This is the address of the Epistle. The first thing to be noticed
about it, by way of introduction, is the universality of this
designation of Christians. Paul had never been in Rome, and knew very
little about the religious stature of the converts there. But he has
no hesitation in declaring that they are all 'beloved of God' and
'saints.' There were plenty of imperfect Christians amongst them;
many things to rebuke; much deadness, coldness, inconsistency, and
yet none of these in the slightest degree interfered with the
application of these great designations to them. So, then, 'beloved
of God' and 'saints' are not distinctions of classes within the pale
of Christianity, but belong to the whole community, and to each
member of the body.
The next thing to note, I think, is how these two great terms,
'beloved of God' and 'saints,' cover almost the whole ground of the
Christian life. They are connected with each other very closely, as I
shall have occasion to show presently, but in the meantime it may be
sufficient to mark how the one carries us deep into the heart of God
and the other extends over the whole ground of our relation to Him.
The one is a statement of a universal prerogative, the other an
enforcement of a universal obligation. Let us look, then, at these
two points, the universal privilege and the universal obligation of
the Christian life.