Paul, a servant of
Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, (which
he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy Scriptures,) concerning his
Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the
flesh; and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of
holiness, by the resurrection from the dead: by whom we have received grace and
apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations, for his name: among
whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ: To all that be in Rome, beloved of
God, called to be saints, Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the
lord Jesus Christ."
WE now enter upon the work of
exposition.
People, in reading the Bible, are often not conscious of the
extreme listlessness with which they pass along the familiar and oft repeated
words of Scripture, without the impression of their meaning being at all
present with the thoughts and how, during the mechanical currency of the verses
through their lips, the thinking power is often asleep for whole passages
together. And you will therefore allow me, at least at the commencement of this
lectureship, first to read over a paragraph; and then to fasten the import of
certain of its particular phrases upon your attention, even though these
phrases may heretofore have been regarded as so intelligible, that you never
thought of bestowing an effort or dwelling one moment upon their signification;
and then of reading the passage over again, in such extended or such
substituted language, as may give us another chance of the sense of it, at
least being rivetted on your understandings. We shall generally endeavour to
press home upon you, in the way of application, some leading truth or argument
which may occur in any such portion of the epistle as we may have been enabled
to overtake.
Ver. 1. "Paul, a servant of Jesus
Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God."
An apostle is one who is sent, one who obtains, not a commission to do, but a
commission to go "Go and preach the Gospel unto every creature." Jesus Christ
is an apostle because sent and is therefore called not merely the High Priest,
but the Apostle of our profession. God sent His Son unto the world. The call of
Paul you read of several times in the Acts, both in the direct narrative of
that book, and in his own account of it. And it is to be remarked that as he
got his commission in a peculiar way, so he evidently feels himself more called
upon than the other apostles, to assert and to vindicate its authenticity.
'Separated unto' - set apart to a particular work. You know that holiness,
in its original meaning, just signifies separation from the mass. It is thus
that the vessels of the temple are holy. It is thus that the terms, common and
unclean, are held, in the language of the ceremonial law, to be synonymous. And
it is thus that the devoting, or setting apart of an apostle to his office, is
expressed by the consecration of him to it; and even, in one part of the New
Testament, by the sanctifying of him to it. This explains a passage that might
be otherwise difficult, John, xvii, 17 - 19. " Sanctify them through thy truth:
thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also
sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also
might be sanctified though the truth." To sanctify here is not applied to the
personal but the official character. It is not to moralize the heart, but
merely to set apart to an employment; and thus bears application to the Apostle
Christ, as to the apostles whom He was addressing.
Gospel, a message of
good news.
Verse. 2. "Which he had promised
afore by his prophets in the holy Scriptures." 'Which' refers to
gospel, - which gospel He had promised.
Ver. 3. "Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of
the seed of David according to the flesh." This verse gives us the
subject of the message, or what the message is aboutor, omitting the second
verse as a parenthesis, separated unto the work of promulgating God's message
of good news, about His Son Jesus Christ our Lord. The phrase which was made
might have been rendered "which became" of the seed of David in respect of His
flesh, or His human nature. He took it upon Him. He received from this descent
all that other men receive of natural faculty or, in other words, the term
flesh comprehends the human soul as well as the human body of our Redeemer.
According to is, 'in respect of'.
Ver. 4. "And
declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness,
by the resurrection from the dead." Declared or determinately marked
out to be the Son of God and with power. The thing was demonstrated by an
evidence, the exhibition of which required a putting forth of power, which Paul
in another place represents as a very great and strenuous exertion. "According
to the working of his mighty power when he raised him from the dead." The
Spirit of holiness or the Holy Spirit. It was through the operation of the Holy
Spirit, that the divine nature was infused into the human at the birth of Jesus
Christ; and the very same agent, it is remarkable, was employed in the work of
the resurrection. "Put to death in the flesh," says Peter, "and quickened by
the Spirit." We have only to do with the facts of the case. He was demonstrated
to be the Son of God, by the power of the Spirit having been put forth in
raising Him from the dead.
Ver. 5. "By whom
we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all
nations, for his name." Grace, sometimes signifies the kindness
which prompts a gift, and sometimes the gift itself. We say that we receive
kindness from a man, when, in fact, all that we can personally and bodily lay
hold of, is the fruit of his kindness. Here it signifies the fruit - a
spiritual gift -ability, in fact, to discharge the office of an apostleship, or
other duties attached to an apostle's commission. He labonred with success at
this vocation, because he could strive mightily according to His working that
wrought in him mightily. This commission was granted to him for the purpose of
producing an obedience unto the faith among all nations, for the purpose of
rendering all nations obedient unto the faith and all this for the further
purpose of magnifying His name.
Ver. 6. "Among
whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ." 'Called' externally, -
if addressing the whole church, of whom it is very possible that some may not
have been called effectually. Or if restricted as in the following verse, only
the latter though he might presume to address all in visible communion with the
church as beloved of God and as called to be saints.
Ver. 7. "To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus
Christ." Loving kindness to you is manifested in those peculiar
influences which the Spirit confers on believers; and either real peace, or a
sense of it in your hearts, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. So
minute an exposition may not be called for afterwards: we may not therefore
persevere in it long. We have now gone in detail over the words that seemed to
require it, to prepare the way for repeating the whole passage to you, either
in extended or in substituted language. But before we do so, we would bid you
remark a peculiarity, which we often meet with in the compositions of this
apostle. He deals very much in what might be called the excursive style. One
word often suggests to him a train of digression from the main current of his
argument; and a single word of that train often suggests to him another; and
thus does he accumulate one subsequent clause of an episode upon a foregoing;
and branches out in so many successive departures, till, after a period of
indulgence in this way of it, he recalls himself and falls in again to the
capital stream of his observations. The interval between the first and seventh
verses may be looked to, as filled up with a set of parentheses; and they will
read therefore very well in succession. Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ,
called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, to all that be in
Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: grace to you and peace from God our
Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. In like manner, several of the
intermediate verses are capable of being omitted, without breaking the line of
continuity. But the occurrence of the term Gospel at the end of the first
verse, is followed up in the second by his mention of the antiquity of it, and
in the third by his mention of the subject of it; and in this verse the single
introduction of our Saviour's name, leads him to assert in thie and the
following verse His divine and human natures, and to state in the fifth verse
that from Him he had received a commission to preach unto all nations, and to
instance in the sixth verse the people whom he was addressing as one of these
nations. And it is not till after he has completed this circle of deviations,
but at the same time enriched the whole of its course with the effusions of a
mind stored in the truths of revelation, that he resumes in the seventh that
rectilineal track, by which the writer who announced himself in the first
verse, sends in the seventh his Christian salutations to the correspondents
whom he is addressing.
We conclude with the following paraphrase.
"Paul a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, and set apart to
the work of conveying God's message of good tidings, which message He had
promised before in His holy Scriptures, and which message relates to His Son
Jesus Christ our Lord, who in respect of His human nature, was descended of
David - but was evinced to be descended of God in respect of that divine nature
with which the Holy Spirit impregnated His humanity at the first; and which He
afterwards, by His power, still associated with His humanity, in raising Him
from the dead. By this Jesus Christ have I received the favour to be an apostle
andl ability for the office of spreading obedience unto the faith among all
nations for the glory of His name. Among these nations are ye Romans, also, the
called of Jesus Christ, and to all of you in Rome, beloved of God, and called
to be saints, do I wish grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ."
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