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
I
Thus the Apostle meets our need on every side. He shews us the holy Law satisfied for us. He shews us the eternal Love liberated upon us. He shews us the Lord's own Life clasped around us, imparted to us; "our life is hid in God with Christ, who is our Life" (Col. iii. 3, 4). Shall we not "exult in God through Him"? A…
380 wordsSECTION 62Ii
Καταλλάσσειν, Καταλλαγή. It is sometimes held that these words denote "reconciliation" in the sense of man's laying aside his distrust, reluctance, resistance towards God, not of God's laying aside His holy displeasure against man; and that for this latter idea, that of persuading an offended superior to grant peace, w…
655 wordsSECTION 63_Christ And Adam_
[74] Ἐλάβομεν: but the English perfect best represents the idea. ROMANS v. 12-21 We approach a paragraph of the Epistle pregnant with mystery. It leads us back to Primal Man, to the Adam of the first brief pages of the Scripture record, to his encounter with the suggestion to follow himself rather than his Maker, to …
715 wordsSECTION 64_Christ And Adam_
He "prophesies in part," meanwhile, even in respect of this element of his message. As we saw just above, the fullest explanations of our union with the Lord Christ _in His life_ were reserved by St Paul's Master for other Letters than this. In the present passage we have not, what probably we should have had if the Ep…
657 wordsSECTION 65_Christ And Adam_
For now the glorious Coming One, the Seed of the Woman, the blessed Lord of the Promise, rises on the view, in His likeness and in His contrast. Writing to Corinth from Macedonia, about a year before, St Paul had called him (1 Cor. xv. 45, 47) "the Second Adam," "the Second Man"; and had drawn in outline the parallel h…
782 wordsSECTION 66_Christ And Adam_
And now he sums up the whole in one comprehensive inference and affirmation. "_The One_," "_the many_"; "_the One_," "_the all_"; the whole mercy for the all due to the one work of the One;--such is the ground-thought all along. It is illustrated by "_the one_" and "_the many_" of the Fall, but still so as to throw the…
662 wordsSECTION 67_Christ And Adam_
Let us translate, as they stand, the closing sentences before us: [Sidenote: Ver. 18.] =Accordingly therefore, as through one transgression= there came a result =to all men, to condemnation,= to sentence of death, =so through one deed of righteousness[83] there came a result to all men,= (to "_all_" in the sense we ha…
771 wordsSECTION 68_Christ And Adam_
* * * * * "The last words of Mr Honest were, _Grace reigns_. So he left the world." Let us walk with the same watchword through the world, till we too, crossing that Jordan, lean with a final simplicity of faith upon "the obedience of the One." [75] It will be seen that we assume, between διὰ τοῦτο and ὥσπερ, some su…
435 wordsSECTION 69_Justification And Holiness_
ROMANS vi. 1-13 In a certain sense, St Paul has done now with the exposition of Justification. He has brought us on, from his denunciation of human sin, and his detection of the futility of mere privilege, to propitiation, to faith, to acceptance, to love, joy, and hope, and finally to our mysterious but real connexio…
822 wordsSECTION 70_Justification And Holiness_
This undesigned witness to the meaning of the Pauline doctrine of Justification by Faith only will appear still more strongly when we come to the Apostle's answer to his questioners. He meets them not at all by modifications of his assertions. He has not a word to say about additional and corrective conditions preceden…
725 wordsSECTION 71_Justification And Holiness_
And further, there is not only this profound connexion of purpose between acceptance and holiness. There is a connexion of endowment and capacity. Justification has done for the justified a twofold work, both limbs of which are all important for the man who asks, _How can_ I walk and please God? First, it has decisivel…
868 wordsSECTION 72_Justification And Holiness_
To men innumerable the discovery of this ancient truth, or the fuller apprehension of it, has been indeed like a beginning of new life. They have been long and painfully aware, perhaps, that their strife with evil was a serious failure on the whole, and their deliverance from its power lamentably partial. And they coul…
725 wordsSECTION 73_Justification And Holiness_
This possession is also a glorious prospect, for it is permanent with the eternity of His Life. It not only is, but shall be. [Sidenote: Ver. 8.] =Now if we died with Christ, we believe,= we rest upon His word and work for it, =that we shall also live with Him,[88]= that we shall share not only now but for all the futu…
666 wordsSECTION 74_Justification And Holiness_
* * * * * "O blissful self-surrender!" The idea of it, sometimes cloudy, sometimes radiant, has floated before the human soul in every age of history. The spiritual fact that the creature, as such, can never find its true centre in itself, but only in the Creator, has expressed itself in many various forms of aspirati…
513 wordsSECTION 75_Justification And Holiness: Illustrations From Human Life_
ROMANS vi. 14--vii. 6 At the point we have now reached, the Apostle's thought pauses for a moment, to resume.[94] He has brought us to self-surrender. We have seen the sacred obligations of our divine and wonderful liberty. We have had the miserable question, "_Shall we cling to sin?_" answered by an explanation of th…
1,219 wordsSECTION 76_Justification And Holiness: Illustrations From Human Life_
The Apostle's aim in this whole passage is to awaken them, with the strong, tender touch of his holy reasoning, to articulate their position to themselves. They have trusted Christ, and are in Him. Then, they have entrusted themselves altogether to Him. Then, they have, in effect, surrendered. They have consented to be…
669 wordsSECTION 77_Justification And Holiness: Illustrations From Human Life_
[Sidenote: Ver. 20.] =For when you were slaves of your (τῆς) sin, you were freemen as to righteousness,= God's Righteousness (τῇ δικαιοσύνῃ). It had nothing to do with you, whether to give you peace or to receive your tribute of love and loyalty in reply. Practically, Christ was not your Atonement, and so not your Mast…
885 wordsSECTION 78_Justification And Holiness: Illustrations From Human Life_
Yet surely the bearing of the sentences is not wholly upon heaven. Life eternal, so to be developed hereafter that Scripture speaks of it often as if it began hereafter, really begins here, and develops here, and is already "more abundant" (John x. 10) here. It is, as to its secret and also its experience, to know and …
674 wordsSECTION 79_Justification And Holiness: Illustrations From Human Life_
The parable is stated and explained with a clearness which leaves us at first the more surprised that in the application the illustration should be reversed. In the illustration, the husband dies, the woman lives, and weds again. In the application, the Law does not die, but we, its unfaithful bride, are "_done to deat…
694 wordsSECTION 80_Justification And Holiness: Illustrations From Human Life_
Alas, in the time of the old abolished wedlock there was result, there was progeny. But that was the fruit not of the union but of its violation. [Sidenote: Ver. 5.] =For when we were in the flesh,= in our unregenerate days, when our rebel self,[105] the antithesis of "the Spirit," ruled and denoted us, (a state, he im…
706 wordsSECTION 81_Justification And Holiness: Illustrations From Human Life_
[95] Ὑπὸ νόμον, ὑπὸ χάριν: the accusative case gives the preposition properly the meaning of _motion underwards_. But this must not be pressed too far. [96] p. 157. [97] Luther's _Esto peccator, et pecca fortiter_, has been often quoted as if that great saint meant to argue licence from Justification by faith. "God f…
410 wordsSECTION 82_The Function Of The Law In The Spiritual Life_
ROMANS vii. 7-25 The Apostle has led us a long way in his great argument; through sin, propitiation, faith, union, surrender, to that wonderful and "excellent mystery," the bridal oneness of Christ and the Church, of Christ and the believer. He has yet to unfold the secrets and glories of the experience of a life live…
796 wordsSECTION 83_The Function Of The Law In The Spiritual Life_
Again it has been held that the passage records the experiences of a half-regenerate soul; struggling on its way from darkness to light, stumbling across a border-zone between the power of Satan and the kingdom of God; deeply convinced of sin, but battling with it in the old impossible way after all, meeting self with …
703 wordsSECTION 84_The Function Of The Law In The Spiritual Life_
Then we find ourselves, we hardly know how, in a range of confessions of a different order. There is a continuity. The Law is there, and sin is there, and a profound moral conflict. But there are now counter-facts. The man, the _Ego_, now "_wills not_," nay, "_hates_," what he practises. He wills what God prescribes, t…
743 wordsSECTION 85_The Function Of The Law In The Spiritual Life_
We are aware of the objection ready to be made, and by devout and reverent men. It will be said that the Indwelling Spirit works always through the being in whom He dwells; and that so we are not to think of Him as a separable Ally, but just to _act ourselves_, leaving it to Him to act through us. Well, we are willing …
993 wordsSECTION 86_The Function Of The Law In The Spiritual Life_
[Sidenote: Ver. 14.] =For we know,= we men with our conscience, we Christians with our Lord's light, =that the Law,= this Law which sin so foully abused, =is spiritual,= the expression of the eternal Holiness, framed by the sure guidance of the Holy Spirit; =but= then =I,= I Paul, taken as a sinner, viewed apart from C…
738 wordsSECTION 87_The Function Of The Law In The Spiritual Life_
Again his purpose is not excuse, but deliverance. No deadly antinomianism is here, such as has withered innumerable lives, where the thought has been admitted that sin may be in the man, and yet the man may not sin. His thought is, as all along, that it is his own shame that thus it is; yet that the evil is, ultimately…
789 wordsSECTION 88_The Function Of The Law In The Spiritual Life_
That cry will not be in vain. The King will take a double line of action in response. While his soldier-bondservant is yet in the body, "the body of this death," He will throw HIMSELF into the narrow hold, and wonderfully turn the tide within it, and around it. And hereafter, He will demolish it. Rather, He will transf…
274 wordsSECTION 89_The Justified: Their Life By The Holy Spirit_
ROMANS viii. 1-11 The sequence of the eighth chapter of the Epistle on the seventh is a study always interesting and fruitful. No one can read the two chapters over without feeling the strong connexion between them, a connexion at once of contrast and of complement. Great indeed is the contrast between the paragraphs …
899 wordsSECTION 90_The Justified: Their Life By The Holy Spirit_
In all these cases, meanwhile, the man had, in one great respect, possessed the great gift all along. In covenant, in Christ, it was his. As he stepped by penitent faith into the Lord, he trod on ground which, wonderful to say, was all his own. And beneath it ran, that moment, the River of the water of life. Only, he h…
833 wordsSECTION 91_The Justified: Their Life By The Holy Spirit_
Thus, as we shall see in detail as we proceed, the Apostle, while he still firmly keeps his hand, so to speak, on Justification, is occupied fully now with its issue, Holiness. And this issue he explains as not merely a matter of grateful feeling, the outcome of the loyalty supposed to be natural to the pardoned. He gi…
1,000 wordsSECTION 92_The Justified: Their Life By The Holy Spirit_
Such, and nothing less or else, was the Law's "_righteous demand_"; an obedience not only universal but also cordial. For its first requirement, "Thou shalt have no other God," meant, in the spiritual heart of it, the dethronement of self from its central place, and the session there of the Lord. But this could never b…
851 wordsSECTION 93_The Justified: Their Life By The Holy Spirit_
Then even for the body there is assured a glorious future, organically one with this living present. Let us listen as he goes on: [Sidenote: Ver. 11.] =But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus,= the slain Man, =from the dead, dwells in you, He who raised from the dead Christ Jesus,= the Man so revealed and glorified a…
703 wordsSECTION 94_The Justified: Their Life By The Holy Spirit_
[120] There can be no reasonable doubt that the words "_who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit_," should be omitted. They are probably a _gloss_ from ver. 4; inserted (perhaps first as a side-note) by scribes who failed to appreciate the profound simplicity of the Apostle's dictum. [121] We thus indicate t…
510 wordsSECTION 95_Holiness By The Spirit, And The Glories That Shall Follow_
ROMANS viii. 12-25 Now the Apostle goes on to develop these noble premisses into conclusions. How true to himself, and to his Inspirer, is the line he follows! First come the most practical possible of reminders of duty; then, and in profound connexion, the inmost experiences of the regenerate soul in both its joy and…
827 wordsSECTION 96_Holiness By The Spirit, And The Glories That Shall Follow_
Holiness is beauty. But it is first duty, practical and present, in Jesus Christ our Lord. [Sidenote: Ver. 12.] =So then, brethren, debtors are we--not to the flesh, with a view to living flesh-wise;= but to the Spirit--who is now both our law and our power--with a view to living Spirit-wise. =For if you are living fl…
655 wordsSECTION 97_Holiness By The Spirit, And The Glories That Shall Follow_
[Sidenote: Ver. 14.] =For as many as are led by God's Spirit, these are God's sons;= [Sidenote: Ver. 15.] =for you did not receive a spirit of slavery,= to take you =back again (πάλιν) to fear; no, you received a Spirit of adoption to sonship, in which= Spirit, surrendered to His holy power, =we cry,= with no bated, he…
676 wordsSECTION 98_Holiness By The Spirit, And The Glories That Shall Follow_
[Sidenote: Ver. 17.] =But if children, then also heirs; God's heirs, Christ's co-heirs,= possessors in prospect of our Father's heaven (towards which the whole argument now gravitates), in union of interest and life with our Firstborn Brother, in whom lies our right. From one hand a gift, infinitely merciful and surpri…
745 wordsSECTION 99_Holiness By The Spirit, And The Glories That Shall Follow_
With such a prospect natural philosophy has nothing to do. Its own laws of observation and tabulation forbid it to make a single affirmation of what the Universe shall be, or shall not be, under new and unknown conditions. Revelation, with no arbitrary voice, but as the authorized while reserved messenger of THE MAKER,…
650 wordsSECTION 100_Holiness By The Spirit, And The Glories That Shall Follow_
[Sidenote: Ver. 24.] =For it is as to our (τῇ) hope that we were saved.= When the Lord laid hold of us we were indeed saved,[136] but with a salvation which was only in part actual. Its total was not to be realized till the whole being was in actual salvation. Such salvation (see below, xiii. 11) was coincident in pros…
431 wordsSECTION 101Chapter Xix
_THE SPIRIT OF PRAYER IN THE SAINTS: THEIR PRESENT AND ETERNAL WELFARE IN THE LOVE OF GOD_ ROMANS viii. 26-39 In the last paragraph the music of this glorious didactic prophecy passed, in some solemn phrases, into the minor mood. "_If we share His sufferings_"; "_The sufferings of this present season_"; "_We groan wi…
696 wordsSECTION 102Chapter Xix
Did He not so intercede for Paul, and in him, fourteen years before these words were written, when (2 Cor. xii. 7-10) the man thrice asked that "the thorn" might be removed, and the Master gave him a better blessing, the victorious overshadowing power? Did He not so intercede for Monnica, and in her, when she sought wi…
731 wordsSECTION 103Chapter Xix
They "love God," with a love perfectly unartificial, the genuine affection of human hearts, hearts not the less human because divinely new-created, regenerated from above. Their immediate consciousness is just this; we love Him. Not, we have read the book of life; we have had a glimpse of the eternal purpose in itself;…
652 wordsSECTION 104Chapter Xix
[Sidenote: Ver. 29.] =For whom He knew beforehand,= with a foreknowledge which, in this argument, can mean nothing short of foredecision[143]--no mere foreknowledge of what they would do, but rather of what He would do for them--=those He also set apart beforehand, for conformation,= deep and genuine, a resemblance due…
1,121 wordsSECTION 105Chapter Xix
So once more the divine music rolls itself out into the blessed Name. We have heard the previous cadences as they came in their order; "Jesus our Lord, who was delivered because of our offences, and was raised again because of our justification" (iv. 25); "That grace might reign, through Jesus Christ our Lord" (v. 21);…
652 wordsSECTION 106_The Sorrowful Problem: Jewish Unbelief; Divine Sovereignty_
[144] Συμμόρφους: μορφὴ is likeness not by accident but of essence. The Greek here is literally, "conformed ones _of_ the image, etc."; as if their similitude made them part of that which they resembled. [145] Let us banish from the idea of "_predestination_" all thought of a mechanical pagan _destiny_, and use it of …
1,026 wordsSECTION 107_The Sorrowful Problem: Jewish Unbelief; Divine Sovereignty_
Then he turns again with new regrets and yearnings to the thought of that wonderful Gospel which was meant for Israel and for the world, but which Israel rejected, and now would fain check on its way to the world. Lastly, he recalls the future, still full of eternal promises for the chosen race, and through them full o…
680 wordsSECTION 108_The Sorrowful Problem: Jewish Unbelief; Divine Sovereignty_
[Sidenote: Ver. 6.] =But it is not as though the word of God has been thrown out (ἐκπέπτωκε),= that "word" whose divine honour was dearer to him than even that of his people. =For not all who come from Israel constitute Israel;= [Sidenote: Ver. 7.] =nor, because they are seed of Abraham, are they all= his =children,= i…
754 wordsSECTION 109_The Sorrowful Problem: Jewish Unbelief; Divine Sovereignty_
In something of such stillness shall we approach the paragraph now to follow? Shall we listen, not to explain away, not even over much to explain, but to submit, with a submission which is not a suppressed resentment but an entire reliance? We shall find that the whole matter, in its practical aspect, has a voice artic…
679 wordsSECTION 110_The Sorrowful Problem: Jewish Unbelief; Divine Sovereignty_
[Sidenote: Ver. 18.] =It appears then that whom He pleases, He pities, and whom He pleases, He hardens,= in that sense in which He "hardened Pharaoh's heart," "made it stiff" (חזק), "made it heavy" (כבד), "made it harsh" (קשׁה)--by sentencing it to have its own way. Yes,[155] thus "_it appears_." And beyond that infere…
704 wordsSECTION 111_The Sorrowful Problem: Jewish Unbelief; Divine Sovereignty_
[Sidenote: Ver. 25.] =As actually (καὶ) in our (τῷ) Hosea= (ii. 23, Heb., 25) in the book we know as such, =He says, "I will call what= was =not My people, My people; and the not-beloved one, beloved.[156]= [Sidenote: Ver. 26.] =And= (another Hosean oracle,[157] in line with the first) =it shall be, in the place where …
855 wordsSECTION 112_The Sorrowful Problem: Jewish Unbelief; Divine Sovereignty_
One great Rabbi at least, Rashi, of the twelfth century, bears witness to the mind of the Jewish Church upon the significance of that mystic Rock. "Behold," so runs his interpretation, "I have established a King, Messiah, who shall be in Zion a stone of proving." Was ever prophecy more profoundly verified in event? No…
347 wordsSECTION 113Detached Note To Ix. 5.
The following is transcribed, with a few modifications, from the writer's Commentary on the Epistle in _The Cambridge Bible_: ["_Who is over all, God blessed for ever._] The Greek may, with more or less facility, be translated (1) as in A.V.; or (2) '=who is God over all,=' etc.; or (3) '=blessed for ever be He who is…
655 wordsSECTION 114Detached Note To Ix. 5.
וַאֲשֶׁר מֵהֶם יָצָא הַמָּשִׁיחַ לְפִי בְשָׂרוֹ אֲשֶׁר הוּא אֵל עַל־הַכֹּל מְבֹרָךְ לְעוֹל מִים אָמֵו [152] For this rendering, rather than the alternative, "_Blessed for ever be the God who is over all_," see the reasons offered below, p. 261. [153] Mal. i. 2, 3.--It is plain that "_hatred_" in such a connexion (and…
335 wordsSECTION 115_Jewish Unbelief And Gentile Faith: Prophecy_
ROMANS x. 1-21 The problem of Israel is still upon the Apostle's soul. He has explored here and there the conditions of the fact that his brethren, as a mass, have rejected Jesus. He has delivered his heart of its loving human groan over the fact. He has reminded himself, and then his readers, that the fact however in…
756 wordsSECTION 116_Jewish Unbelief And Gentile Faith: Prophecy_
Yet such was not the view of St Paul, himself once the most honest and disinterested Jewish zealot in the world. He had seen THE LORD. And so he had seen himself. The deadly mixture of motive which may underlie what nevertheless we may have to call an _honest_ hatred of the Gospel had been shewn to him in the white lig…
860 wordsSECTION 117_Jewish Unbelief And Gentile Faith: Prophecy_
We have traversed here a tract pregnant of questions and mystery. We have to remember here also, as in previous places, that the Scripture is "not a sun, but a lamp." Much, very much, which this passage suggests as problem finds in its words no answer. This citation from Deuteronomy, with its vision of ascents and desc…
733 wordsSECTION 118_Jewish Unbelief And Gentile Faith: Prophecy_
As we quit the passage, let us mark and cherish its insistence upon "_confession_," "_confession with the mouth that Jesus is Lord_." This specially he connects with "_salvation_," with the believer's preservation to eternal glory. "_Faith_" is "_unto righteousness_"; "_confession_" is "_unto salvation_." Why is this? …
760 wordsSECTION 119_Jewish Unbelief And Gentile Faith: Prophecy_
Here, as an incident in this profound discussion, is given for ever to the Church of Christ one of the most distinct and stringent of her missionary "marching-orders." Let us recollect this, and lay it on our own souls, forgetting awhile, for we may, the problem of Israel and the exclusiveness of ancient Pharisaism. Wh…
795 wordsSECTION 120_Jewish Unbelief And Gentile Faith: Prophecy_
Why is not that Name already at least externally known and reverenced in every place of human dwelling? It would have been so, for a long time now, if the Church of Christ had followed better the precept and also the example of St Paul. Had the apostolic missions been sustained more adequately throughout Christian hist…
826 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.