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
_Jewish Unbelief And Gentile Faith: Prophecy_
Then the swift thought turns, and returns again. The prophecies _have_ foretold an evangelical utterance to the whole human world. Not only in explicit prediction do they do so, but in the "mystic glory" of their more remote allusions. [Sidenote: Ver. 18.] =But I say, Did they not hear?= Was this failure of belief due …
672 wordsSECTION 122_Israel However Not Forsaken_
[172] Observe that the context in Deut. xxx. is full of the thought that rebels and law-breakers shall be welcome back when they come penitent to their God, "without one plea," but taking Him at His word. [173] Or, with an alternative reading, "_that Jesus is Lord_." [174] See above, ix. 33. [175] Throughout these q…
794 wordsSECTION 123_Israel However Not Forsaken_
We seem to see the look and hear the voice of the Apostle, once the mighty Rabbi, the persecuting patriot, as he begins now to dictate again. His eyes brighten, and his brow clears, and a happier emphasis comes into his utterance, as he sets himself to speak of his people's good, and to remind his Gentile brethren how,…
966 wordsSECTION 124_Israel However Not Forsaken_
To return a little on our steps, in the matter of the Apostle's doctrine of the divine Choice: the reference in this paragraph to the seven thousand faithful in Elijah's day suggests a special reflection. To us, it seems to say distinctly that the "election" intended all along by St Paul cannot possibly be explained ad…
808 wordsSECTION 125_Israel However Not Forsaken_
The words are awful, in their connexion here, and in themselves, and as a specimen of a class. Their purpose here is to enforce the thought that there is such a thing as positive divine action in the self-ruin of the impenitent; a _fiat_ from the throne which "gives" a coma to the soul, and beclouds its eyes, and turns…
737 wordsSECTION 126_Israel However Not Forsaken_
In any case, do not let us talk with a loose facility about their incompatibility with "the spirit of the New Testament." From one side, the New Testament is an even sterner Book than the Old; as it must be of course, when it brings sin and holiness "out into the light" of the Cross of Christ. It is in the New Testamen…
478 wordsSECTION 127Chapter Xxiii
_ISRAEL'S FALL OVERRULED, FOR THE WORLD'S BLESSING, AND FOR ISRAEL'S MERCY_ ROMANS xi. 11-24 The Apostle has been led a few steps backwards in the last previous verses. His face has been turned once more toward the dark region of the prophetic sky, to see how the sin of Christ-rejecting souls is met and punished by t…
1,077 wordsSECTION 128Chapter Xxiii
To that bright coming day the Apostle points us now, more directly than ever: [Sidenote: Ver. 12.] =But if their partial fall[190] be the world's wealth, and their lessening (ἥττημα),= their reduction, (a reduction in one aspect to a race of scattered exiles, in another to a mere remnant of "Israelites indeed,") =be th…
846 wordsSECTION 129Chapter Xxiii
Let this be remembered in every enterprise for the spiritual good of the great Dispersion now. Through such efforts God is already approaching His hour of blessing, long expected. Let that fact animate and give a glad patience to His workers, on whose work He surely begins in our day to cast His smile of growing blessi…
852 wordsSECTION 130Chapter Xxiii
Here are more topics than one which call for reverent notice and study. 1. The imagery of the Olive, with its root, stem, and branches. The Olive, rich and useful, long-lived, and evergreen, stands, as a "nature-parable" of spiritual life, beside the Vine, the Palm, and the Cedar, in the Garden of God. Sometimes it pi…
769 wordsSECTION 131Chapter Xxiii
4. The appeal to the new-grafted "branch" to "abide by the goodness of God." We have listened, as St Paul has dictated to his scribe, to many a deep word about a divine and sovereign power on man; about man's absolute debt to God for the fact that he believes and lives. Yet here, with equal decision, we have man thrown…
553 wordsSECTION 132_The Restoration Of Israel Directly Foretold: All Is Of And For God_
ROMANS xi. 25-36 Thus far St Paul has rather reasoned than predicted. He has shewn his Gentile friends the naturalness, so to speak, of a restoration of Israel to Christ, and the manifest certainty that such a restoration will bring blessing to the world. Now he advances to the direct assertion, made with a Prophet's …
669 wordsSECTION 133_The Restoration Of Israel Directly Foretold: All Is Of And For God_
"Believest thou the Prophets?" The question, asked of Agrippa by St Paul, comes to us from this prediction of his own. "Lord, we believe." Our Master knows that for us in our day it is not easy. The bad air of materialism, and the profound and stolid fatalism which it involves, is thick around us. And one symptom of it…
883 wordsSECTION 134_The Restoration Of Israel Directly Foretold: All Is Of And For God_
3. The quotations from Psalms and Prophets (verses 26, 27) offer more questions than one. They are closely interlaced, and they are not literal quotations. "_Out of Sion_" takes the place of "_for Zion_." "_He shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob_" takes the place of "_For them that turn from transgression in Jacob_.…
786 wordsSECTION 135_The Restoration Of Israel Directly Foretold: All Is Of And For God_
May we not extend the reference of a sentence so absolute in its oracular brevity, and take it to speak the secret of an indefectible mercy not only to nation, but to individual? Here as elsewhere we shall need to remember the rule which bids us, in the heights and depths of all truth, "go to both extremes." Here as el…
712 wordsSECTION 136_The Restoration Of Israel Directly Foretold: All Is Of And For God_
[Sidenote: Ver. 33.] =Oh depth of wealth of God's wisdom and knowledge too! How past all searching are His judgments, and past all tracking are His ways!= [Sidenote: Ver. 34.] ="For who ever knew the Lord's mind? Or who ever proved His counsellor?"[205]= [Sidenote: Ver. 35.] =Or who ever first gave to Him, and requital…
858 wordsSECTION 137_Christian Conduct The Issue Of Christian Truth_
[198] Such is the normal meaning of μυστήριον in the N. T. It is a thing which in itself may or may not be what we mean by "mysterious." But it is a thing which mere observation and reasoning cannot _à priori_ arrive at; God must disclose it. [199] Πλήρωμα is the practical realization of an ideal. [200] So we paraphr…
931 wordsSECTION 138_Christian Conduct The Issue Of Christian Truth_
Let us take deep note of this characteristic of Scripture, its minuteness of precept, in connexion with its revelation of spiritual blessing. If in any sense we are called to be teachers of others, let us carry out the example. Richard Cecil, wise and pregnant counsellor in Christ, says that if he had to choose between…
823 wordsSECTION 139_Christian Conduct The Issue Of Christian Truth_
But observe the pregnant collocation here of "_the body_" with "_the reason_." "_Give over your bodies_"; not now your spirit, your intelligence, your sentiments, your aspirations, but "_your bodies_," to your Lord. Is this an anti-climax? Have we retreated from the higher to the lower, in coming from the contemplation…
685 wordsSECTION 140_Christian Conduct The Issue Of Christian Truth_
It is a process, not a crisis; "_grow_ transfigured." The origin of the process, the liberation of the movement, is, at least in idea, as critical as possible; "_Give over your bodies_." That precept is conveyed, in its Greek form (παραστῆσαι, aorist), so as to suggest precisely the thought of a critical surrender. The…
803 wordsSECTION 141_Christian Conduct The Issue Of Christian Truth_
We have spoken of "_the parable_ of the Body." But is the word "parable" adequate? "What if earth be but the shadow of heaven?" What if our physical frame, the soul's house and vehicle, be only the feebler counterpart of that great Organism in which the exalted Christ unites and animates His saints? That union is no me…
829 wordsSECTION 142_Christian Conduct The Issue Of Christian Truth_
The passage itself amply implies that he is to use actively and honestly his renewed _intelligence_. He is to look circumstances and conditions in the face, remembering that in one way or another the will of God is expressed in them. He is to seek to understand not his duties only but his personal equipments for them, …
519 wordsSECTION 143_Christian Duty: Details Of Personal Conduct_
ROMANS xii. 9-21 St Paul has set before us the life of surrender, of the "giving-over" of faculty to God, in one great preliminary aspect. The fair ideal (meant always for a watchful and hopeful realization) has been held aloft. It is a life whose motive is the Lord's "compassions"; whose law of freedom is His will; w…
782 wordsSECTION 144_Christian Duty: Details Of Personal Conduct_
[Sidenote: Ver. 16.] =Feeling[217] the same thing towards one another;= animated by a happy identity of sympathy and brotherhood. =Not haughty in feeling,[218] but full of lowly sympathies[219];= accessible, in an unaffected fellowship, to the poor, the social inferior, the weak and the defeated, and again to the small…
976 wordsSECTION 145_Christian Duty: Details Of Personal Conduct_
"_In_ the good"; as if surrounded by it,[221] moving invulnerable, in its magic circle, through "the contradiction of sinners," "the provoking of all men." The thought is just that of Psal. xxxi. 18, 19: "How great is Thy goodness, which Thou hast laid up for them that fear Thee, which Thou hast wrought for them that t…
740 wordsSECTION 146_Christian Duty: Details Of Personal Conduct_
It is among the chief and deepest of the characteristics of Christian ethics, this passive root below a rich growth and harvest of activity. All through the New Testament we find it expressed or suggested. The first Beatitude uttered by the Lord (Matt. v. 3) is given to "the poor, the mendicant (πτωχοί), in spirit." Th…
653 wordsSECTION 147_Christian Duty: Details Of Personal Conduct_
Yet is it not plain that, when the Apostles thought of the life and zeal of their converts, their first care, by far, was that they should be wholly conformed to the will of God in personal and social matters? This was the indispensable condition to their being, as a community, what they must be if they were to prove t…
634 wordsSECTION 148_Christian Duty; In Civil Life And Otherwise: Love_
ROMANS xiii. 1-10 A new topic now emerges, distinct, yet in close and natural connexion. We have been listening to precepts for personal and social life, all rooted in that inmost characteristic of Christian morals, self-surrender, self-submission to God. Loyalty to others in the Lord has been the theme. In the circle…
657 wordsSECTION 149_Christian Duty; In Civil Life And Otherwise: Love_
It hardly needs elaborate remark to shew that such a precept, little as it may accord with many popular political cries of our time, means anything in the Christian but a political servility, or an indifference on his part to political wrong in the actual course of government. The religion which invites every man to st…
661 wordsSECTION 150_Christian Duty; In Civil Life And Otherwise: Love_
Serious questions for practical casuistry may be raised, of course, from this passage. Is resistance to a cruel despotism never permissible to the Christian? In a time of revolution, when power wrestles with power, which power is the Christian to regard as "_ordained of God_"? It may be sufficient to reply to the forme…
724 wordsSECTION 151_Christian Duty; In Civil Life And Otherwise: Love_
[Sidenote: Ver. 1.] =Let every soul,= every person, who has "presented his body a living sacrifice," =be submissive to the ruling authorities;= manifestly, from the context, the authorities of the State. =For there is no authority except by God[223]; but the existing authorities have been appointed by God.= That is, th…
722 wordsSECTION 152_Christian Duty; In Civil Life And Otherwise: Love_
Such were the political principles of the new Faith, of the mysterious Society, which was so soon to perplex the Roman statesman, as well as to supply convenient victims to the Roman despot. A Nero was shortly to burn Christians in his gardens as a substitute for lamps, on the charge that they were guilty of secret and…
679 wordsSECTION 153_Christian Duty; In Civil Life And Otherwise: Love_
Is it a mere negative precept then? Is the life of love to be only an abstinence from doing harm, which may shun thefts, but may also shun personal sacrifices? Is it a cold and inoperative "harmlessness," which leaves all things as they are? We see the answer in part in those words, "_as thyself_." Man "loves _himself_…
514 wordsSECTION 154Chapter Xxviii
_CHRISTIAN DUTY IN THE LIGHT OF THE LORD'S RETURN AND IN THE POWER OF HIS PRESENCE_ ROMANS xiii. 11-14 The great teacher has led us long upon the path of duty, in its patient details, all summed up in the duty and joy of love. We have heard him explaining to his disciples how to live as members together of the Body o…
774 wordsSECTION 155Chapter Xxviii
So we come to this great Advent oracle, to read it for our own age. Now first let us remember its wonderful illustration of that phenomenon which we have remarked already, the concurrence in Christianity of a faith full of eternity, with a life full of common duty. Here is a community of men called to live under an alm…
943 wordsSECTION 156Chapter Xxviii
How solemnly explicit he is, how plain-spoken, about the temptations of the Roman Christian's life! The men who were capable of the appeals and revelations of the first eight chapters yet needed to be told not to drink to intoxication, not to go near the house of ill-fame, not to quarrel, not to grudge. But every moder…
730 wordsSECTION 157Chapter Xxviii
"Heaven's unencumbered plan" of "victory and triumph, against the devil, the world, and the flesh," is no day-dream of romance. It lives, it works in the most open hour of the common world of sin and sorrow. _We have seen_ this "putting on of the Lord Jesus Christ" victoriously successful where the most fierce, or the …
667 wordsSECTION 158Chapter Xxviii
Then let us remember that it is a fact that man, in the mercy of God, _can_ "put Him on." He is not far off. He presents Himself to our touch, our possession. He says to us, "Come to Me." He unveils Himself as literal partaker of our nature; as our Sacrifice; our Righteousness, "through faith in His blood"; as the Head…
713 wordsSECTION 159Chapter Xxix
[227] Omitte mirari beatæ Fumum et opes strepitumque Romæ. (Horace.) [228] Προέκοψε: literally, "_made progress_." The aorist may refer to the event of the First Advent, when our eternal Sun was heralded by Himself the Morning Star. But perhaps it is best represented by the English perfect, as in the A.V. and above. …
961 wordsSECTION 160Chapter Xxix
Such a case as this would be a sore temptation to the "strong" Christian. He would be greatly inclined, of himself, first to make a vigorous protest, and then, if the difficulty proved obstinate, to think hard thoughts of his narrow-minded friend; to doubt his right to the Christian name at all; to reproach him, or (wo…
754 wordsSECTION 161Chapter Xxix
Incidentally meantime, the Apostle, in this passage which so curbs "the strong," lets fall maxims which for ever protect all that is good and true in that well-worn and often misused phrase, "the right of private judgment." No spiritual despot, no claimant to be the autocratic director of a conscience, could have writt…
831 wordsSECTION 162Chapter Xxix
For manifestly it is this objective aspect of our "belonging" which is here in point. St Paul is not reasoning with the "weak" and the "strong" from their experience, from their conscious loyalty to the Lord. Rather, he is calling them to a new realization of what such loyalty should be. It is in order to this that he …
753 wordsSECTION 163Chapter Xxix
True it is that the leading and essential character of their present state is rest, as that of their resurrection state will be action. But the two states overflow into each other. In one glorious passage the Apostle describes the resurrection bliss as also "rest" (2 Thess. i. 7). And here we have it indicated that the…
650 wordsSECTION 164Chapter Xxix
And all this shall take place (this is the special emphasis of the prospect here) with a solemn individuality of enquiry. "_Every one of us--for himself_--shall give account." We reflected, a little above, on the true place of"individualism" in the life of grace. We see here that there will indeed be a place for it in …
813 wordsSECTION 165Chapter Xxix
Oh consecrating thought, attached now, for ever, for the Christian, to every human soul which he can influence: "_For whom Christ died!_" [Sidenote: Ver. 16.] =Do not therefore let your good,= your glorious creed of holy liberty in Christ, =be railed at,= as only a thinly veiled self-indulgence after all; [Sidenote: V…
764 wordsSECTION 166Chapter Xxix
Thus the Apostle of Justification, and of the Holy Spirit, is the Apostle of Conscience too. He is as urgent upon the awful sacredness of our sense of right and wrong, as upon the offer and the security, in Christ, of peace with God, and the holy Indwelling, and the hope of glory. Let our steps reverently follow his, a…
349 wordsSECTION 167_The Same Subject: The Lord'S Example: His Relation To Us All_
ROMANS xv. 1-13 The large and searching treatment which the Apostle has already given to the right use of Christian Liberty, is yet not enough. He must pursue the same theme further; above all, that he may put it into more explicit contact with the Lord Himself. We gather without doubt that the state of the Roman Mis…
672 wordsSECTION 168_The Same Subject: The Lord'S Example: His Relation To Us All_
[Sidenote: Ver. 3.] =For even our (ὁ) Christ did not please Himself; but, as it stands written= (Psal. lxix. 9), ="The reproaches of those who reproached Thee, fell upon Me."= It is the first mention in the Epistle of the Lord's Example. His Person we have seen, and the Atoning Work, and the Resurrection Power, and th…
720 wordsSECTION 169_The Same Subject: The Lord'S Example: His Relation To Us All_
He has cited Psalm lxix. as a Scripture which, with all the solemn problems gathered round its dark "minatory" paragraph, yet lives and moves with Christ, the Christ of love. And now--not to confirm his application of the Psalm, for he takes that for granted--but to affirm the positive Christian use of the Old Scriptur…
843 wordsSECTION 170_The Same Subject: The Lord'S Example: His Relation To Us All_
[Sidenote: Ver. 7.] =Wherefore welcome one another into fellowship, even as our (ὁ) Christ welcomed you,[246]= all the individuals of your company, and all the groups of it, =to our (τοῦ) God's glory.= These last words may mean either that the Lord's welcome of "_you_" "_glorified_" His Father's grace; or that that gra…
885 wordsSECTION 171_The Same Subject: The Lord'S Example: His Relation To Us All_
How many a Church controversy, now as then, would die of inanition, leaving room for a living truth, if the disputants could only _gravitate_, as to their always most beloved theme, to the praises and glories of their redeeming LORD Himself! It is at His feet, and in His arms, that we best understand both His truth, an…
726 wordsSECTION 172_The Same Subject: The Lord'S Example: His Relation To Us All_
And all this it is as a life lived "_in the power of the Holy Ghost_." Not by enthusiasm, not by any stimulus which self applies to self; not by resources for gladness and permanence found in independent reason or affection; but by the almighty, all-tender power of the Comforter. "The Lord, the Life-Giver," giving life…
660 wordsSECTION 173Chapter Xxxi
_ROMAN CHRISTIANITY: ST PAUL'S COMMISSION: HIS INTENDED ITINERARY: HE ASKS FOR PRAYER_ ROMANS xv. 14-33 The Epistle hastens to its close. As to its instructions, doctrinal or moral, they are now practically written. The Way of Salvation lies extended, in its radiant outline, before the Romans, and ourselves. The Way …
901 wordsSECTION 174Chapter Xxxi
Is this passage in any degree an exception? No; for it contains its own full inner evidence of its metaphorical cast. The "_priest-working_" here has regard, we find, not to a ritual, but to "_the Gospel_." "_The oblation_" is--the Nations. The hallowing Element, shed as it were upon the victims, is the Holy Ghost. Not…
697 wordsSECTION 175Chapter Xxxi
As always, in the fine courtesy of pastoral love, he says more, and thinks more, of his own expected gain of refreshment and encouragement from them, than even of what he may have to impart to them. So he had thought, and so spoken, in his opening page (i. 11, 12); it is the same heart throughout. How little did he re…
733 wordsSECTION 176Chapter Xxxi
Here he pauses, to ask them for that boon of which he is so covetous--intercessory prayer. He has been speaking with a kind and even sprightly pleasantry (there is no irreverence in the recognition) of those Personages, Macedonia and Achaia, and their gift, which is also their debt. He has spoken also of what we know f…
832 wordsSECTION 177Chapter Xxxi
No false spiritual pride suggests it to St Paul to conceal his anxieties from the Romans. It is a temptation sometimes to those who have been called to help and strengthen other men, to affect for themselves a strength which perhaps they do not quite feel. It is well meant. The man is afraid that if he owns to a burthe…
650 wordsSECTION 178_A Commendation: Greetings: A Warning: A Doxology_
ROMANS xvi. 1-27 Once more, with a reverent licence of thought, we may imagine ourselves to be watching in detail the scene in the house of Gaius. Hour upon hour has passed over Paul and his scribe as the wonderful Message has developed itself, at once and everywhere the word of man and the Word of God. They began at …
745 wordsSECTION 179_A Commendation: Greetings: A Warning: A Doxology_
Bishop Lightfoot, in an Excursus in his edition of the Philippian Epistle,[261] has given us reason to think that not a few of the "Romans" named here by St Paul were members of that "Household of Cæsar" of which in later days he speaks to the Philippians (iv. 22) as containing its "saints," saints who send special gre…
656 wordsSECTION 180_A Commendation: Greetings: A Warning: A Doxology_
Now it is time to come from our preliminaries to the text. [Sidenote: Ver. 1.] =But=--the word may mark the movement of thought from his own delay in reaching them to Phœbe's immediate coming--=I commend to you Phœbe, our sister,= (this Christian woman bore, without change, and without reproach, the name of the Moon-G…
651 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.