THE EPISTLE OF PAUL THE APOSTLE TO
THE
ROMANS
Commentary by David Brown
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, Phoebe, 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); 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.
Excerpt from:
A Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
by Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown
Rick Meyers.
e-Sword ®: www.e-sword.net
