done, with St. Paul's epistles of justification, was so zealous to
separate the faith in virtue of which God justifies us from all idea of
merit, that he represented it as a bare acceptance of the divine offer
without any moral quality at all--a bare believing ourselves to be
saved, without any moral reason in it. Thus, accepting an existing
scholastic distinction between an 'informed' faith, i.e. a faith
ensouled {39} by love, and a 'formless' or bare faith, he held the
faith on account of which God justifies us to be rigidly of the
formless kind; and while fully recognizing the richer sort of faith as
the God-given quality of those already justified, declared that it had
nothing to do with their justification. But this conception of two
separate sorts of faith, of which only the loveless sort, that involves
no moral worth, has to do with our acceptance with God, is not only a
high road to moral laxity or antinomianism, but is also utterly alien
to the spirit of St. Paul, in whom the whole life of faith is one and
continuous[40]. It could only have arisen at a particular moment of
theological controversy which is past and gone. And the same must be
said of the allied doctrine of the total depravity of our fallen
nature, which drove men to violent misinterpretations alike of
scripture and of their moral instincts.
And what of the Tridentine theology? No doubt in its general view of
our fallen human nature it is far more reasonable and Pauline than the
Lutheran; and it is also truer to St. Paul in laying the main stress on
a divine righteousness {40} actually imparted to us, and not on
Christ's merits imputed and not imparted; or, in other words, in
recognizing that forgiveness is only a prelude to the development of a
new life of holiness. But on the other hand it puts itself hopelessly
out of relation to St. Paul's language and thought by interpreting
justification as the being made righteous, and accordingly speaking of
baptism as the instrument by which we are justified, whereas to St.
Paul justification means our preliminary acceptance without regard to
what we have been, and the initial faith which enables men to be thus
accepted would normally, in those he is thinking about, have preceded
baptism, as in his own case, or that of Cornelius, or of the eunuch.
Who can doubt that the faith of St. Paul's conversion is what enabled
God to accept him, though it remained for him, as for other men, to
'wash away his sins' by being 'baptized into Christ[41]?'
May we not truly say that deeper and maturer study of St. Paul has for
us undercut and antiquated the theological standing-grounds of the {41}
sixteenth century, and substituted for them something both truer,
completer, and freer?
iv.
It only remains to make more emphatic what has been already suggested,
that the Pauline doctrine of justification is of much more than
antiquarian interest. We do not, as has been already shown, get rid of
the 'danger of thinking to be saved by works' because we are not, like
the Pharisees, abandoned to ecclesiastical observances. All moral
codes or standards, sanctioned by a society or class and involving no
more than a limited liability, come under the moral category of 'works
of a law.' They all are apt to leave men as independent of God as the
Pharisees, and as resentful of the fuller light. The late Master of
Balliol expresses a characteristic opinion that the notions of 'legal
righteousness,' or of 'the pride of human nature,' or 'the tendency to
rebel against the will of God, or to attach an undue value to good
works[42],' are 'fictions as applied to our own time[43].' But {42}
this is surely lamentably untrue. Men all round us dread the idea of
committing themselves to God. They do not know how far it will carry
them. They are like would-be soldiers who should refuse to enlist till
they had had some assurance as to the extremest risk that their service
might involve. Thus, because they cannot get this assurance, they will
make no beginning of the life of real faith. They live by a limited
code which retains their independence for them. If they are also
ecclesiastically minded, the 'legal righteousness' always involved in
this sort of morality becomes even outwardly more like that of the
Pharisees, and it is not very uncommon among churchmen. But the whole
habit of mind, inside or outside the area of professed churchmanship,
has its root in what is properly and profoundly human pride and the
false clinging to independence of God. This 'pride of life' seems to
be almost more dangerous and, in fact, disastrous than even 'the lust
of the flesh and the lust of the eyes.' Thus if we can only get St.
Paul's doctrine of the necessity of faith rightly understood, there is
no teaching more necessary for these times.
And, on the other hand, where men are really ready to follow the light
and do God's will, they {43} need--they need exceedingly for the good
of the whole body--to realize St. Paul's teaching about justification,
that is, about God's constant attitude towards men, in order to obtain
that peace which is meant to be, not the far-off goal of Christian
life, but its basis and foundation. When a person is continuously
apprehensive and excited about his spiritual state, he is not in the
temper of mind in which he can best serve God or work out his own or
other men's salvation. 'Peace must go before as well as follow after;
a peace, too, not to be found in the necessity of law (as philosophy
has sometimes held), but in the sense of the love of God to His
creatures. He has no right to this peace, and yet he has it.' In
these words of the same writer whom we just now were obliged to
criticize we may find a simple expression of the truth. 'Wherefore,
being accepted of God simply because we take Him at His word, let us
have and hold peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ[44].' Then
we can throw ourselves without embarrassments into the life of love and
sacrifice, the life which has the love of God in Christ for its motive,
and reflects it among men.
No doubt we must admit that St. Paul's {44} doctrine of justification
has not been generally appreciated in the Church--the fact is strange,
but it is indisputable. No doubt also we must admit that those who
have chiefly been identified with it have often even disastrously
distorted it. No doubt, as a result both of this neglect and of this
distortion, the ordinary religious Englishman of the present day is
disposed to pass it by as having little meaning for him. Nevertheless
it remains true that no revival of religion can ever attain to any
ripeness or richness unless this central doctrine of St. Paul's gospel
resumes its central place with us also. For, as St. Paul preached it,
it means this above all else--personal devotion to Jesus Christ as our
redeemer. This personal devotion begins by accepting from Him the
unmerited boon of forgiveness of our sins, and (what is only the other
side of such forgiveness) inheritance in the consecrated body. But the
consciousness of what we have received from Christ, and the price it
cost Him to put it at our disposal, gives to the whole subsequent life
the character of a devotion based on gratitude. This is the Christian
life according to St. Paul--personal devotion to Christ and personal
service based on gratitude for what He has done for us. 'For the love
of Christ {45} constraineth us; because we thus judge, that one died
for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, that they which live
should no longer live unto themselves, but unto Him who for their sakes
died and rose again.'
[1] Acts xx. 23.
[2] Hort's _Prolegomena to Romans and Ephesians_ (Macmillan, 1895), p.
9.
[3] Sanday and Headlam's _Commentary_ (T. & T. Clark, 1895), p. xxviii.
This commentary is henceforth referred to as S. & H.
[4] See Rom. ii. 17; iii. 9, &c.
[5] See Rom. i. 13; xi. 13-32; xv. 14-21.
[6] Rom. xvi. 3.
[7] See Rom. vi. 17, and remarks p. 234; cf. S. & H., p. xli.
[8] Acts xv. 1-35.
[9] Gal. ii. 1-10.
[10] Rom. xv. 25-32.
[11] Hort, l.c., p. 44.
[12] Rom. i. 10, 11; xv. 22-24.
[13] On the relation between the two, see later, p. 168.
[14] 1 Macc. ii. 42; vii. 13 ff.
[15] John v. 44.
[16] Matt. xv. 6; xxiii. 23.
[17] Rom. x. 3.
[18] Acts xv. 10.
[19] Rom. vii. 7.
[20] See the argument of Gal. iii. 15-22. 'God is one' in a sense
which excludes the idea of any relatively independent contracting party
over against Him.
[21] Acts xxvi. 14.
[22] Col. ii. 20-22.
[23] 2 Tim. i. 12.
[24] Rom. x. 5-8.
[25] Cf. iii. 22, 26, &c.
[26] 2 Cor. v. 19; Rom. iv. 25.
[27] 1 Pet. i. 21. It is of course the case that the name God in the
New Testament is _generally_ reserved for the Father, though the proper
divinity of Son and Spirit is constantly implied.
[28] See below, p. 124.
[29] Matt. xviii. 23-35.
[30] 2 Pet. i. 9.
[31] Rom. v. 9-11.
[32] 1 Cor. vi. 11.
[33] Cf. Hort, _First Ep. of Peter_ (Macmillan, 1898), p. 70.
[34] It is noticeable that St. Paul never uses the verb translated 'to
be sanctified' of persons in the present tense. It always describes an
already existing state rather than a process.
[35] Rom. v. 18, but cf. later, p. 202.
[36] Hort, l.c., p. 24.
[37] Eph. v. 25; Tit. ii. 14; cf. Acts xx. 28.
[38] Ritschl, _Rechtfertigung und Versoehnung_, ii. p. 217 ff. Cf. S. &
H., p. 122; and Orr, _Ritschlian Theology_ (Hodder and Stoughton, 1898)
p. 169 ff.
[39] The subject comes forward especially in connexion with chapters
ix-xi.
[40] I know that any brief statement about Luther's doctrine may be
disputed, for his own statements vary considerably. But I think the
tendency of his teaching is fairly represented above.
[41] 'Acceptance' is already acquittal; but only in view of the new
life of the body of Christ which is to emancipate man from the power of
sin. Thus it is only as incorporated into Christ that he finds his
former sin 'put away.' 'I believe in one baptism for the remission of
sins.'
[42] He should say, if he would represent St. Paul, 'works,' not 'good
works.'
[43] Essay on 'Righteousness by Faith,' in _Epistles of St. Paul_
(Murray, 1894), vol. ii. p. 264. The whole essay is very
characteristic and very interesting, but not very Pauline.
[44] Rom. v. 1.
{46}
THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS
CHAPTER I. 1-7.
_Salutation._
It was the custom in the days of the Romans to begin a letter with a
brief indication from whom it came and to whom it was addressed, in the
form of a complimentary salutation, thus--to take an example from the
New Testament--'Claudius Lysias unto the most excellent governor Felix,
greeting[1].' We are familiar in our day with the like forms for
beginning and ending letters, serving the same purpose and generally no
other. St. Paul then accepts the epistolary form of his day, but pours
into it an increasing wealth of personal meaning[2]. Thus in this
place the necessary address--'Paul the apostle {47} to the believers in
Jesus Christ which are in Rome, greeting'--is expanded into a
salutation extraordinarily full of meaning, explaining (1) who it is
who writes the letter; (2) with what justification; (3) to whom; and
(4) with what greeting.
(1) It is Paul who is writing, and he describes himself both personally
and officially. Personally, since the day when he surrendered himself
on the road to Damascus, he has been 'the slave of Jesus Christ,' bound
in all things to do His will, and exulting all the time in the moral
liberty which that bondage gave him. Officially, he has received a
commission and an office equal to that of the older apostles in the
kingdom of Christ: he has been 'called to be an apostle, separated to
proclaim the good tidings of God.'
(2) It is then this glorious commission that justifies his writing.
These good tidings of God are the fulfilment of an age-long promise for
which the world had been waiting. Of ancient days there were
'prophets,' men commissioned to speak for God, whose writings remained
after them and are held in highest reverence as 'holy scriptures.'
These men foretold good days from God that were to come to His people
in the {48} coming of the divinely anointed king, the Christ. And now
they are come. God has sent to redeem men not a servant, but His own
Son. True, He came as man among men: as one of the royal house of
David, the house from which the Christ was promised; yet simply man in
outward nature and appearance, or 'according to the flesh.' But
besides that ordinary seeming manhood, there was in Him something
higher--a sacred spiritual nature. And this higher nature it was that
finally determined the estimate in which He was to be held. If
'according to the flesh' He was a man of David's house, according to
this 'spirit of holiness' He was decisively designated by God's own act
as Son of God in miraculous power, and that especially when He was made
the example of a resurrection from the dead. Thenceforth 'Jesus' of
Nazareth is 'Christ' and 'the Lord' of Christians. It is He through
whom St. Paul and his fellows received the outpouring of the divine
bounty for their own lives, and their apostolic commission on behalf of
the name of Christ to bring all the nations of the earth to the
obedience of faith. And this commission extends as far as the Roman
Christians and justifies St. Paul in writing to them.
{49}
(3) To all the Christians at Rome, then, 'called to be saints,' i.e.
called into the consecrated body and to the consecrated life, St. Paul
is writing. He does not say 'to the church which is at Rome,' as in
the other epistles of this date he writes 'to the church at Corinth'
and to 'the churches of Galatia.' And though this might be accidental,
yet probably it is due to the fact that St. Paul thought of the Roman
Christians as individuals who, many of them, had been converted
elsewhere and for various reasons had come to be living at Rome; so
that in fact they had hardly yet attained the consistency of a single
ordered church.
(4) And to these Christians he gives his greeting by wishing for them
those gifts which may be taken as summing up the blessings of Christ
about which this epistle is to say so much--'grace,' which is God's
love to us in actual operation, and 'peace,' which is the state of mind
of one who realizes God's love--from the Father and the Son. This
benediction is, however, but a Christian form of that of Aaron, 'The
Lord make his face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: the
Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace[3].'
{50}
Paul, a servant of 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 Son 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.
There is, I believe, nothing in the above analysis which is not implied
at least in the original language of this salutation. And it is a
remarkable summary of the grounds of St. Paul's Christian belief, more
exact and explicit than the 'Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the
dead, of the seed of David, according to my gospel[4].' There are some
points in it which require further notice:--
1. The use of 'spirit of holiness' in connexion with Christ (in ver.
4). Here it is put in antithesis to 'the flesh,' i.e. Christ as He
appeared to the outward eye in His natural manhood; and describes,
vaguely and without further definition, the higher nature of which,
behind {51} His visible manhood, men became conscious[5]. Elsewhere
'spirit' is more exactly used to describe (1) the human spirit in us or
in Christ[6]; (2) disembodied persons or angels or devils[7]; (3) the
Holy Ghost[8]; (4) the being of God[9]; (5) generally what has will and
consciousness, as opposed to the merely external, the 'flesh' or the
'letter[10].' Sometimes, as in 2 Cor. iii. 17, it is hard to feel sure
about the exact shade of meaning.
2. We have here, in a very brief compass, St. Paul's conception of
'Christian evidences.' He begins from Christ, 'according to the
flesh.' 'And why,' asks Chrysostom, 'did he not begin from the higher
side? Because Matthew also, Luke and Mark, begin from the lower. One
who would lead others upwards must begin from below. And this was in
fact the divine method. First they saw Him (Christ) as man on the
earth, and then perceived Him to be God.' It was, in other words,
through the {52} experience of His manhood that they arrived at His
Godhead. And the evidence of His divine sonship was in part
miraculous; but it was not mere miracle. It was miracle 'according to
a spirit of holiness.' It was miracle filled with spiritual and moral
meaning. It was a resurrection vindicating perfect righteousness.
3. The phrase 'the resurrection of the dead' is translated more
exactly by Wiclif 'agenrisynge of dead _men_! Christ's resurrection is
the great example of what is to be general.
4. The obedience of faith exactly describes the human faculty as it
showed itself in St. Paul himself at his conversion. With him to
believe was, without any possibility of question, to obey Him whom he
believed, and St. Paul knows no faith which does not involve a like
obedience; cf. xv. 18; xvi. 26; 1 Pet. i. 2.
[1] Acts xxiii. 26.
[2] The salutation of the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, the
earliest epistle, is the most nearly formal. Those to the Romans and
to Titus are the fullest and richest.
[3] Num. vi. 25, 26; see Hort, _First Ep. of Peter_, p. 25.
[4] 2 Tim. ii. 8.
[5] Cf. 1 Tim. iii. 16, 'justified in the spirit,' where the use is
approximately the same.
[6] See 1 Thess. v. 23; 1 Cor. v. 5; James ii. 26; Matt. v. 3; xxvi.
41; 1 Pet. iii. 18; Mark viii. 12.
[7] Luke xxiv. 39; Heb. xii. 23; i. 14; Matt. viii. 16, &c.
[8] Matt. iii. 16; Luke x. 21, R.V. &c.
[9] John iv. 24.
[10] John vi. 63; Rom. ii. 29; 2 Cor. iii. 6.
{53}
CHAPTER I. 8-17.
_St. Paul's introduction._
The salutation is immediately followed by a passage in which St. Paul
introduces himself specially to the Christians at Rome. He had a
delicate task to perform. The Roman Christians had been gathered
probably from many parts of the empire, because Rome was the centre of
all the world's movements, and adherents of whatever was going on in
the empire were sure by force of circumstances to find their way to
Rome. Thus, though no apostle had yet preached at Rome, Christians had
gathered there. Many of them had not seen St. Paul's face. But they
had heard of him, no doubt, in Jewish circles as a very dangerous man
who was upheaving and subverting established traditions and principles.
He was a man to be looked at askance. He must introduce himself
therefore carefully. It was of the greatest importance {54} to him,
the Apostle of the Gentiles, that he should gain full recognition among
these Christians at Rome, the centre of the Gentile world. We observe
then in this introduction what a gentleman, if I may say so, in the
very deepest sense of the term, St. Paul shows himself to be. He
speaks indeed with an admirable mixture of tact and candour. We can
hardly conceive any better address in a delicate situation than this
address of St. Paul with which he makes his approach to the Roman
Christians.
He begins with what is pleasant for them to hear, namely, that the
report of their faith throughout all the world is a good one. 'I thank
my God through Jesus Christ for you all that your faith is proclaimed
throughout the whole world.' Then he goes on to add, as is usual in
his introductions, that he continually prays for them. It was a remark
of General Gordon's that it makes a great difference in our feeling
towards a stranger if before we meet him we have prayed for him. And
we may with equal truth say that it makes a great difference in the
feelings of others towards us if they have reason to believe that we
have prayed for them. St. Paul therefore gives himself this advantage.
He says, 'God is my witness, whom I worship in my {55} spirit in the
gospel of his Son, how unceasingly I make mention of you always in my
prayers.' Then he goes on to tell them that he not only prays for
their welfare, but prays that he may have the advantage of seeing them
face to face and knowing them. And here he puts his desire to see them
on the true ground. He wants to visit them because he has something of
the utmost value to give them--that he may 'impart unto them some
spiritual gift.'
Whatever may be the exact nature of the 'spiritual gift' St. Paul is
thinking of, it is clearly something for which his bodily presence is
necessary. There is some divine power which he as an apostle can
communicate to them only when he comes among them. In this sense he
means that 'when he comes to them he will come in the fulness of the
blessing of Christ[1].' He implies that the Roman Christians needed
him and must wait for him to supply their deficiencies. But we observe
that with beautiful tact he at once balances this assertion of a divine
power entrusted to him for their good, by representing his own need of
them. He does not speak _de haut en bas_ as if he had everything to
give and nothing to receive. {56} No: as the people depend on the
apostle for spiritual gifts, so he depends on the people for spiritual
encouragement. He must live by the experience of their spiritual
growth. 'I desire,' he says, 'to come to you that I may impart unto
you some spiritual gift, to the end that ye may be established' (built
up and made strong in the faith). And then he interprets:--that is 'in
order that I with you may be encouraged[2] among you, each of us by the
other's faith, both yours and mine.'
Then he goes on to tell them why he in particular is bound to come to
them, though hitherto he had been hindered by circumstances. It is
because he is 'a debtor.' St. Paul was the Apostle, not of the Jews,
but of the Gentiles. Therefore he is in debt to all the Gentiles till
he has given them the gospel, and more particularly to the centre of
the Gentile world, to Rome. And he would owe no man anything. He
would have no unsatisfied creditors. He will pay his debt therefore to
the Roman Christians. 'I am a debtor,' he says, 'both to Greeks and to
barbarians'--that is to all the Gentiles, whether they were of Greek
race or not. And {57} the Greeks were so identified with civilization
or education that this leads him on to say, 'I am a debtor both to the
educated and to the uneducated.' This general debt includes Rome. It
was natural to include the dwellers at Rome under the head of Greeks,
for it was through the medium of Greek that St. Paul made his appeal to
them. And, in fact, the Christians at Rome were, for the first two
hundred and fifty years or more of the Church's life, a Greek-speaking
people--a Greek colony in the Latin city. Only towards the end of the
third century did the Roman Church become latinized in language and
spirit. St. Paul then is a debtor to these Greek-speaking dwellers at
Rome. 'So as much as in me is I am ready to preach the gospel to you
also that are in Rome.'