PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
The Expositor's Bible: The Epistle of St Paul to the Romans
Moule, H. C. G. (Handley Carr Glyn) · 135,555 words · 189 reading sections
H. C. G. M.
Transcriber's Note. Apparent typographical errors have been corrected. Inconsistent hyphenation has been retained. Small capitals have been rendered as full capitals, while italics are indicated by _underscores_. Bold font, in which the author's own translation of the Epistle has been printed, is indicated by =equal…
292 wordsSECTION 2Preface
He who attempts to expound the Epistle to the Romans, when his sacred task is over, is little disposed to speak about his Commentary; he is occupied rather with an ever deeper reverence and wonder over the Text which he has been permitted to handle, a Text so full of a marvellous man, above all so full of GOD. But it …
674 wordsSECTION 3Preface
We may note here that both Hort and Lightfoot contend for _the conciliatory_ aim of the Roman Epistle. They regard the great passage about Israel (ix.-xi.) as in some sense the heart of the Epistle, and the doctrinal passages preceding this as all more or less meant to bear on the relations not only of the Law and the …
313 wordsSECTION 4Errata.
Page 113, line 8, _for_ "circumcision" _read_ "uncircumcision." Page 263, line 15, _for_ "אָמֵו" _read_ "אָמֵן." Forasmuch as this Epistle is ... a light and way unto the whole Scripture, I think it meet that every Christian man not only know it, by rote and without the book, but also exercise himself therein evermor…
307 wordsSECTION 5Contents
PAGE CHAPTER I TIME, PLACE, AND OCCASION 1 CHAPTER II THE WRITER AND HIS READERS 10 ROMANS i. 1-7 CHAPTER III GOOD REPORT OF THE ROMAN CHURCH: PAUL NOT ASHAMED OF THE GOSPEL 23 ROMANS i. 8-17 CHAPTER IV NEED FOR THE GOSPEL: GOD'S ANGER AND MAN'S SIN 38 ROMANS i. 18-23 CHAPTER V MAN GIVEN UP TO HIS OWN WAY…
455 wordsSECTION 6_Time, Place, And Occasion_
It is the month of February, in the year of Christ 58.[2] In a room in the house of Gaius, a wealthy Corinthian Christian, Paul the Apostle, having at his side his amanuensis Tertius, addresses himself to write to the converts of the mission at Rome. The great world meanwhile is rolling on its way. It is the fourth ye…
664 wordsSECTION 7_Time, Place, And Occasion_
Besides, he has been hearing about the actual state of that all-important mission. As "all roads led to Rome," so all roads led from Rome, and there were Christian travellers everywhere (i. 8) who could tell him how the Gospel fared among the metropolitan brethren. As he heard of them, so he prayed for them, "without c…
860 wordsSECTION 8_Time, Place, And Occasion_
Another question had been pressing the Apostle's mind, and that for years, but recently with a special weight. It was the mystery of Jewish unbelief. Who can estimate the pain and greatness of that mystery in the mind of St Paul? His own conversion, while it taught him patience with his old associates, must have filled…
881 wordsSECTION 9_The Writer And His Readers_
As we look on his face we think, with awe and gladness, that with those same thought-tired eyes (and are they not also troubled with disease?) he has literally seen, only twenty years ago, so he will quietly assure us, the risen and glorified JESUS. His work during those twenty years, his innumerable sufferings, above …
794 wordsSECTION 10_The Writer And His Readers_
Meanwhile, this bondservant-apostle, because "under authority," carries authority. His MASTER has spoken to him, that he may speak. He writes to the Romans as man, as friend, but also as the "vessel of choice, to bear the Name" (Acts ix. 15) of Jesus Christ. Such is the sole essential work and purpose of his life. He …
676 wordsSECTION 11_The Writer And His Readers_
What was the burthen of the vast prophecy, with its converging elements? [Sidenote: Ver. 3.] It was =concerning His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.= Whatever the prophets themselves knew, or did not know, of the inmost import of their records and utterances, the import was this. The Lord and the Apostles do not commit us t…
719 wordsSECTION 12_The Writer And His Readers_
"_He was born_" of David's seed. Literally, the Greek may be rendered, "_He became, He came to be_." Under either rendering we have the wonderful fact that He who in His higher Nature eternally _is_, above time and including it, did in His other Nature, by the door of _becoming_, enter time, and thus indeed "fill all t…
696 wordsSECTION 13_The Writer And His Readers_
=Unto obedience of faith among all the Nations.= This "_obedience of faith_" is in fact faith in its aspect as submission. What is faith? It is personal trust, personal self-entrustment to a person. It "gives up the case" to the Lord, as the one only possible Giver of pardon and of purity. It is "_submission_ to the ri…
772 wordsSECTION 14_The Writer And His Readers_
Read some vivid picture of Roman life, and think of this. See it as it is shown by Tacitus, Suetonius, Juvenal, Martial; or as modern hands, Becker's or Farrar's, have restored it from their materials. What a deadly air for the regenerate soul--deadly not only in its vice, but in its magnificence, and in its thought! B…
595 wordsSECTION 15_Good Report Of The Roman Church: Paul Not Ashamed Of The Gospel_
ROMANS i. 8-17 He has blessed the Roman Christians in the name of the Lord. Now he hastens to tell them how he blesses God for them, and how full his heart is of them. The Gospel is warm all through with life and love; this great message of doctrine and precept is poured from a fountain full of personal affection. [S…
839 wordsSECTION 16_Good Report Of The Roman Church: Paul Not Ashamed Of The Gospel_
The prayers of St Paul are a study by themselves. See his own accounts of them, to the Corinthians, the Ephesians, the Philippians, the Colossians, the Thessalonians, and Philemon. Observe their topic; it is almost always the growth of grace in the saints, to their Master's glory. Observe now still more their manner; t…
873 wordsSECTION 17_Good Report Of The Roman Church: Paul Not Ashamed Of The Gospel_
[Sidenote: Ver. 13.] =But I would not have you ignorant, brethren.= This is a characteristic term of expression with him.[9] He delights in confidence and information, and not least about his own plans bearing on his friends. =That often I purposed= (or better, in our English idiom, =have purposed=) =to come to you, (b…
679 wordsSECTION 18_Good Report Of The Roman Church: Paul Not Ashamed Of The Gospel_
His eagerness is no light-heartedness, no carelessness of when or where. This wonderful missionary is too sensitive to facts and ideas, too rich in imagination, not to feel the peculiar, nay the awful greatness, of a summons to Rome. He understands culture too well not to feel its possible obstacles. He has seen too mu…
907 wordsSECTION 19_Good Report Of The Roman Church: Paul Not Ashamed Of The Gospel_
Hence the overwhelming prominence of faith in the Gospel. It is the correlative of the overwhelming, the absolute, prominence of Jesus Christ. Christ is all. Faith is man's acceptance of Him as such. "Justification by Faith" is not acceptance because faith is a valuable thing, a merit, a recommendation, a virtue.[13] I…
650 wordsSECTION 20_Good Report Of The Roman Church: Paul Not Ashamed Of The Gospel_
More than one analysis of the phenomenon, which we all know to be fact, may be suggested. But for our part we believe that the true solution lies near the words sin, pardon, self-surrender. The Gospel reveals the eternal Love, but under conditions which remind man that he has done his worst to forfeit it. It tells him …
450 wordsSECTION 21_Need For The Gospel: God'S Anger And Man'S Sin_
ROMANS i. 18-23 We have as it were touched the heart of the Apostle as he weighs the prospect of his Roman visit, and feels, almost in one sensation, the tender and powerful attraction, the solemn duty, and the strange solicitation to shrink from the deliverance of his message. Now his lifted forehead, just lighted up…
780 wordsSECTION 22_Need For The Gospel: God'S Anger And Man'S Sin_
Let us go to Him, the all-benignant Friend and Teacher, to learn the true attitude of thought towards Him as "the Judge, strong and patient," "but who will in no wise clear the guilty" by unsaying His precepts and putting by His threats. He assuredly will teach us, in this matter, no lessons of hard and narrow denuncia…
837 wordsSECTION 23_Need For The Gospel: God'S Anger And Man'S Sin_
That there is Personality behind phenomena, and that this great Personality is righteous, St Paul here affirms to be "_manifest_," disclosed, visible, "_in men_." It is a fact present, however partially apprehended, in human consciousness. And more, this consciousness is itself part of the fact; indeed it is that part …
890 wordsSECTION 24_Need For The Gospel: God'S Anger And Man'S Sin_
Man has spent on these unworthy "ways of thinking" a great deal of weak and dull reasoning and imbecile imagination, but also some of the rarest and most splendid of the riches of his mind, made in the image of God. But all this thinking, because conditioned by a wrong attitude of his being as a whole, has had "_futile…
327 wordsSECTION 25_Man Given Up To His Own Way: The Heathen_
ROMANS i. 24-32 [Sidenote: Ver. 24.] =Wherefore God gave them up, in the desires of their hearts, to uncleanness, so as to dishonour their bodies among themselves.= There is a dark sequence, in the logic of facts, between unworthy thoughts of God and the development of the basest forms of human wrong. "The fool hath …
729 wordsSECTION 26_Man Given Up To His Own Way: The Heathen_
As if animated by the word of benediction, he returns to denounce "the abominable thing which God hateth" with still more terrible explicitness. [Sidenote: Ver. 26.] =For this reason,= because of their preference of the worse to the infinite Good, =God gave them up to passions of degradation;= He handed them over, self…
693 wordsSECTION 27_Man Given Up To His Own Way: The Heathen_
Here is a terrible accusation of human life, and of the human heart; the more terrible because it is plainly meant to be, in a certain sense, inclusive, universal. We are not indeed compelled to think that the Apostle charges every human being with sins against nature, as if the whole earth were actually one vast City …
750 wordsSECTION 28_Human Guilt Universal: He Approaches The Conscience Of The Jew_
"The Gospel," some one has said, "can never be proved except to a bad conscience." If "bad" means "awakened," the saying is profoundly true. With a conscience sound asleep we may discuss Christianity, whether to condemn it, or to applaud. We may see in it an elevating programme for the race. We may affirm, a thousand t…
801 wordsSECTION 29_Human Guilt Universal: He Approaches The Conscience Of The Jew_
All this points straight at the Jewish conscience, though the arrow is levelled from a covert. If that conscience might but be reached! He longs to reach it, first for the unbeliever's own sake, that he might be led through the narrow pass of self-condemnation into the glorious freedom of faith and love. But also it wa…
658 wordsSECTION 30_Human Guilt Universal: He Approaches The Conscience Of The Jew_
Here he actually touches the Jew. He has named him twice, and in both places recognizes that primacy which in the history of Redemption is really his. It is the primacy of the race chosen to be the organ of revelation and the birth-place of Incarnate God. It was given sovereignty, "not according to the works," or to th…
1,073 wordsSECTION 31_Human Guilt Universal: He Approaches The Conscience Of The Jew_
The whole passage, read by a soul awake to itself, and to the holiness of the Judge of men, will contribute from its every sentence something to our conviction, our repentance, our dread of self, our persuasion that somehow from the judgment we must fly to the Judge. But this is not to be unfolded yet. It was, I belie…
726 wordsSECTION 32_Human Guilt Universal: He Approaches The Conscience Of The Jew_
Implicitly, all through the passage, human failure is taught side by side with human responsibility. Such a clause as that of ver. 14, "_when they do by nature the things of the law_," is certainly not to be pressed, _in such a context as this_, to be an assertion that pagan morality ever actually satisfies the holy te…
387 wordsSECTION 33_Jewish Responsibility And Guilt_
ROMANS ii. 17-29 "_The Jew, first, and also the Greek_"; this has been the burthen of the Apostle's thought thus far upon the whole. He has had the Jew for some while in his chief thought, but he has recurred again and again in passing to the Gentile. Now he faces the Pharisee explicitly and on open ground, before he …
734 wordsSECTION 34_Jewish Responsibility And Guilt_
So it is now, very far beyond the limits of the Jewish Dispersion of our time. Now as then, and for the Christian "outwardly" as for the Jew "outwardly," there is no surer path to spiritual degeneracy than spiritual pride. What are the watchwords which have succeeded to those of the Rabbinists who encountered St Paul? …
753 wordsSECTION 35_Jewish Responsibility And Guilt_
But he has more to say about the position of the Jew. He would not even seem to forget the greatness of the God-given privilege of Israel; and he will use that privilege once more as a cry to conscience. [Sidenote: Ver. 25.] =For circumcision indeed profits you, if you carry law into practice;= in that case circumcisi…
793 wordsSECTION 36_Jewish Responsibility And Guilt_
But the significance of this particular passage is indeed far-reaching, permanent, universal. As before, so here, the Apostle warns us (not only the Jew of that distant day) against the fatal but easy error of perverting privilege into pride, forgetting that every gift of God is "a talent" with which the man is to trad…
705 wordsSECTION 37_Jewish Claims: No Hope In Human Merit_
Sacred indeed are the God-given externals of Christian order and ordinance. But there are degrees of greatness in the world of sacred things. And the moral work of God direct upon the soul of man is greater than His sacramental work done through man's body. [20] There is no practical doubt that εἰ δὲ not ἴde ("_Behold…
773 wordsSECTION 38_Jewish Claims: No Hope In Human Merit_
To insist upon this immense privilege is altogether to St Paul's purpose here. For it is a privilege which evidently carries an awful responsibility with it. What would be the guilt of the soul, and of the Community, to whom those Oracles were--not given as property, but _entrusted_--and who did not do the things they …
711 wordsSECTION 39_Jewish Claims: No Hope In Human Merit_
Now he takes up the caviller on his own ground, and goes all lengths upon it, and then flies with abhorrence from it. [Sidenote: Ver. 7.] =For if God's truth, in the matter of my lie, has abounded,= has come more amply out, =to His glory, why am I too[30] called to judgment as a sinner?= [Sidenote: Ver. 8.] =And why no…
747 wordsSECTION 40_Jewish Claims: No Hope In Human Merit_
[Sidenote: Ver. 9.] =What then? are we superior?[31]= Say =not= so =at all (μηδαμῶς).= Thus now he proceeds, taking the word finally from his supposed antagonist. Who are the "_we_" and with whom are "we" compared? The drift of the argument admits of two replies to this question. "_We_" may be "_we Jews_"; as if Paul p…
693 wordsSECTION 41_Jewish Claims: No Hope In Human Merit_
Long after this, as his glorious rest drew near, St Paul wrote again of the human heart, to "his true son" Titus (iii. 3). He reminds him of the wonder of that saving grace which he so fully unfolds in this Epistle; how, "not according to our works," the "God who loveth man" had saved Titus, and saved Paul. And what ha…
679 wordsSECTION 42_The One Way Of Divine Acceptance_
[Sidenote: Ver. 20.] =Because by means of works of law there shall be justified no flesh in His presence; for by means of law comes--moral knowledge (ἐπύγνωσις) of sin.= [27] Μὴ γένοιτο: literally, "_Be it not_"; "_May it not be_." Perhaps nothing so well represents the _energy_ of the Greek as the "_God forbid_" of t…
839 wordsSECTION 43_The One Way Of Divine Acceptance_
Is this "somehow" possible? Listen, guilty and silent soul, to a sound which is audible now. In the turmoil of either secular indifference or blind self-justification you could not hear it; at best you heard a meaningless murmur. But listen now; it is articulate, and it speaks to you. The earthquake, the wind, the fir…
1,118 wordsSECTION 44_The One Way Of Divine Acceptance_
How precious to you now are the words which once, perhaps, were worse than insipid, "_Faith_," "_Justification_," "_the Righteousness of God_"! In the discovery of your necessity, and of Christ as the all-in-all to meet it, you see with little need of exposition the place and power of _Faith_. It means, you see it now,…
681 wordsSECTION 45_The One Way Of Divine Acceptance_
[Sidenote: Ver. 28.] =For we reckon,[42]= we conclude, we gather up our facts and reasons thus, =that man is justified[43] by faith, apart from,= irrespective of, =works of law.= In other words, the meriting cause lies wholly in Christ, and wholly outside the man's conduct. We have seen, implicitly, in the passage abov…
435 wordsSECTION 46Detached Note To Romans Iii.
It would be a deeply interesting work to collect and exhibit together examples of the conveyance of great spiritual blessing, in memorable lives, through the perusal of the Epistle to the Romans. Augustine's final crisis (see below, on xiii. 14) would be one such example. As specimens of what must be a multitude we quo…
657 wordsSECTION 47Detached Note To Romans Iii.
[38] Ὃν προέθετο ὁ Θεός: it is possible to render, "_Whom God designed_," in His eternal counsel of redemption. But the context just below emphasizes the thought of "_declaration_," manifestation, explanation of the hidden Treasure. This seems to decide for the other rendering. [39] Ἱλαστήριον: elsewhere in Scripture …
269 wordsSECTION 48_Abraham And David_
ROMANS iv. 1-12 The Jewish disputant is present still to the Apostle's thought. It could not be otherwise in this argument. No question was more pressing on the Jewish mind than that of Acceptance; thus far, truly, the teaching and discipline of the Old Testament had not been in vain. And St Paul had not only, in his …
830 wordsSECTION 49_Abraham And David_
From one point of view, the all-important view-point here, it mattered not what Abraham's conduct had been. As a fact, he was already devout when the incident of Gen. xv. occurred. But he was also actually a sinner; _that_ is made quite plain by Gen. xii., the very chapter of the Call. And potentially, according to Scr…
703 wordsSECTION 50_Abraham And David_
Let us not be mistaken, meanwhile, as if such words meant that a definite creed of the Atoning Work is not possible, or is not precious. This Epistle will help us to such a creed, and so will Galatians, and Hebrews, and Isaiah, and Leviticus, and the whole Scripture. "Prophets and kings desired to see the things we see…
842 wordsSECTION 51_Abraham And David_
We pause to note the exposition implied here of the phrase, "_to reckon righteousness_." It is to treat the man as one whose account is clear. "Happy the man to whom the Lord will not reckon sin." In the phrase itself, "_to reckon_ righteousness," (as in its Latin equivalent, "_to impute_ righteousness,") the question,…
738 wordsSECTION 52Detached Note To Chapter X
So privilege had nothing to do with acceptance, except to countersign the grant of a grace absolutely free. The Seal did nothing whatever to make the Covenant. It only verified the fact, and guaranteed the _bona fides_ of the Giver. As the Christian Sacraments are, so was the Patriarchal Sacrament; it was "a sure testi…
649 wordsSECTION 53Chapter Xi
_ABRAHAM_ (ii) ROMANS iv. 13-25 Again we approach the name of Abraham, Friend of God, Father of the Faithful. We have seen him justified by faith, personally accepted because turning altogether to the sovereign Promiser. We see him now in some of the glorious issues of that acceptance; "Heir of the world," "Father of…
655 wordsSECTION 54Chapter Xi
No secular conscious programme has had to do with this. Causes entirely beyond the reach of human combination have been, as a fact, combined; the world has been opened to the Abrahamic message just as the Church has been inspired anew to enter in, and has been awakened to a deeper understanding of her glorious mission.…
1,120 wordsSECTION 55Chapter Xi
[Sidenote: Ver. 23.] =Now it was not written only on his account, that it was reckoned to him,= [Sidenote: Ver. 24.] =but also on account of us, to whom it is sure (μέλλει) to be reckoned,= in the fixed intention of the divine Justifier, as each successive applicant comes to receive; =believing as we do on the Raiser-u…
743 wordsSECTION 56Chapter Xi
"_Who was delivered up because of our transgressions._" So dealt the Father with the Son, who gave Himself. "It pleased the Lord to bruise Him"; "He spared not His own Son." "_Because of our transgressions_"; to meet the fact that we had gone astray. What, was that fact thus to be met? Was our self-will, our pride, our…
745 wordsSECTION 57_Peace, Love, And Joy For The Justified_
"Can length of years on God Himself exact, And make that fiction which was once a fact?" [55] In Uganda, 1893. [56] We attempt thus to represent the perfects, κεκένωται, κατήργηται. [57] Read οὗ δὲ not οὗ γάρ. [58] It is impossible to convey in English the point of the word ἔθνη here, with its faint reference to t…
784 wordsSECTION 58_Peace, Love, And Joy For The Justified_
[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]…
794 wordsSECTION 59_Peace, Love, And Joy For The Justified_
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 precariou…
1,020 wordsSECTION 60_Peace, Love, And Joy For The Justified_
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 e…
978 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.