Apostle's heart (0") as that subject was, it belongs to the historical application of the fundamental idea of the Epistle rather than to the libre and substance of that idea itself. Tlie ideal relation between God and man holds good prior to any particular course which in God's piovidence the religious history of the world may have followed. Had the Jews never enjoyed the position of a chosen people, the fumlamental facts of human nature in relation to God would have been the same. The Law came in as a secondary factor (.3^), and the historical relations of Jew and Gentile, the apostiy^y of the Jews, belong to the sphere not of eternal realities, but of the contin- gent. Therefore the tirst eight chapters accomplish St. Paul's primary purpose ; the next three round ott' his fundamental thought by vindicating it in the light of religious history. And of the lirst eight chapters, clearly those (6-8) which deal with the principles of the Christian life presuppose and are governed by those which treat of man s funda- mental relation to God (1-5). These chapters, then, which are directed to convincing all Chris- tians, especially those of Jewish habits of thought, that man cannot become righteous by means of law, but only by faith, are the central portion of the Epistle, and it is there that its main purpose is to be found. St. Paul's main purpose was, then, to commend ' his gospel,' the prmciple of the righteousness of faith, to the Christians of Rome. But if so, it is a letter, not a treatise in the full sense of the word. So far from being meant as a compendium of Christian doctrine, it is not written with special reference to what was common to St. Paul and the older apostles (1 Co 15")- This the Romans already know, and it is taken for granted (16" 6"). The apostle writes not to controvert, nor even to reconstruct rfe novo, but to complete (1"). St. Paul's gospel was but the exiilicit for- mulation of what was implied in the go:-pel as preached by all, and from the first. If Christ, as all taught and all believed, had died not in vain, then righteousness did not come tlirough Law (cf. Gal 2-'). It need not, thi-n, surprise us that the enunciation ex professo of the specihcally Pauline doctrines is almost conlined to the Epistles of this group. In the earlier Epistles to the Thessa- lonians, St. Paul is at a simpler stage of his teaching. To the recent converts of Macedonia, temper.'ince, righteousness, and the judgment that wa.s to come (Ac 24'-^) supi)ly the natural heads of instruction. In Philippians we catch the last echoes of the great controversy ; in Ephesians, Colossians, Philemon, and still more in Timothy and Titus, new circumstances call forth dill'erent categories of doctrine. But throughout, the prin- ciples of Romans and Galatians are presupi)Oscd and are fundamental. Lastly, as compared with Galatians itself, our Epistle is primary. Galatians (see al)Ove, § iii. 6) is addressed at a special jisycho- logical moment. Its argument from the priority in tnne of the covenant of faith reappears, identical in substance, tmt in more extended elaboration, in Ho 4. But the eternal [jrinciple which underlies this historical argument is worked out in Romans with a wider outlook and a deeper foundaticm in human nature. The Gentile world is included in the arraignment of human helplessness before God. The history is carried back from Abraham to Adam ; the justihcation of man is put into relation with the righteousness of God, the inability (8') of the Law to save is grounded upon a searching psychological analysis of its exact elVect (Ro 7°", cf. Gal 3"), and the contrasted moral renovation ellected by the Spirit (Gal .')""'•) is described at length and put into relation with a comprehensive and sublime view of the meaning and destiny of creation. No doubt, the root-ideas of Romans are
those of Galatians ; but in the latter Epistle St Paul is dealing with the controversy of the hour, in Romans he is dealing with human nature itself, and with the fundamental and universal relation? of man as man to God as (;o<l, as conditioned by the central fact of history — the Person and work of Christ. Our Epistle, then, is the ripe fruit of St. Paul's distinctive mission as a master-builder (1 Co S'") in the formation of the Church. In chs. 1-5, where he speaks as a Jew to Jews, we see .Judaism led out of itself by the gospel, but by its own methods and from its own premises. This is a re-statement, but on a broader basis, of the position of Galatians. Then in chs. 6-8, speak- ing as a Christian to Christians, he brings out the contrast between law (and (Icsh) and grace (and spirit) as the respective sjilieies of the old and the new life. Here the Jewish point of view, its legalism and nationalism, are left far behind, and tile ethical categories of the OT (even in theii truest signihcance) have given place to those of the New (comp.are the deepened sense of the terms 'spirit' and 'flesh,' below, § vi.), the obedience of slaves to that of sons, the natural man to the spiritual ; propitiation for sin issues in the destruc- tion of its power (8'°^-), the satisfaction of Law by Christ in its supersession as a factor in the spiritual life.