It would be unreasonable to suppose that Paul was insensible to tlie mighty associations which connected themselves with the name of Kome. The seat of the imperial government to which Jerusalem itself, with the rest of the world, was then subject, must have been a grand object to the thoughts of the apostle from liis infancy upward. He was himself a citizen of Rome ; he had come repeatedly under the jurisdic- tion of Roman magistrates ; he had enjoj'ed the ben- efits of the equity of the Koman law, and the justice of Eoman administration. And, besides its universal supremacy, Rome was the natural head of the Gentile world, as Jerusalem was the head of the Jewish world. In this august city Paul had many friends and breth- ren. Romans who had travelled into Greece and Asia, strangers from Greece and Asia who had gone to settle at Kome, had heard of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of heaven from Paul himself or from other preachers of Christ, and had formed themselves into a community, of which a good report had gone forth througliout the Christian world. We are not sur- prised therefore to hear that the apostle was ver}' anxious to visit Rome. It was his fixed intention to go to Rome, and from Rome to extend his journeys as far as Spain (Rom. xv, 24, 28). He would thus bear his testimony both in the capital and to the extremities of the Western or Gentile world. For the present he could not go on from Corinth to Rome, because he was drawn by a special errand to Jerusalem — where indeed he was likely enough to meet with dangers and delaj's (xv, 25-32). But from Jerusalem he proposed to turn towards Rome. In the meanwhile he would write tliem a letter from Corinth.
The letter is a substitute for the personal visit which he had longed "for many years" to pay; and, as he would have made the visit, so now he writes the let- ter, because he is the apostle of the Gentiles. Of this office, to speak in common language, I'aul was proud. All the labors and dangers of it he would willinglv encounter; and he would also jealousl}' maintain its dignity and its powers. He held it of Christ, and Christ's commission should not be dishonored. He represents himself grandly as a priest, appointed to ofier up the faith of the Gentile world as a sacrifice to God (xv, IG). He then proceeds to speak with pride of the extent and independence of his apostolic labors. It is in harmon}' witii this language that he should address the Roman Church as consisting mainly of Gentiles : but we find that he speaks to them as to persons deeplj' interested in Jewish questions. To the Church thus composed, the apostle of the Gentiles ■writes to declare and commend the Gospel which he everywhere preaches. That Gospel was invariably the announcement of Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Lord of men, who was made man, died, and was raised again, and whom his heralds present to the faith and
obedience of mankind. Such a Kijpvyixa might be variousl}' commended to different hearers. In speak- ing to the Roman Church, Paul represents the chief value of it as consisting in the fact that, through it, the righteousness of God, as a righteousness not for God only, but also for men, was revealed. It is natu- ral to ask what led him to choose and dwell upon this aspect of his proclamation of Jesus Christ. The fol- lowing answers suggest themselves : (1.) As lie looked upon the condition of the Gentile world, with that couj) d'ceil which the writing of a letter to the Roman Church was likely to suggest, he was struck hj the awful wickedness, the utter dissolution of moral ties, wliich has made that age infamous. His own terrible summary (i, 21-32) is well known to be confirmed by other contemporarj' evidence. The profligacy which we shudder to read of was constantly under Paul's eye, especially at Corinth. Along with the evil he saw also the beginnings of God's judgment upon it. He saw the miseries and disasters, begun and impend- ing, which proved that God in heaven would not tol- erate the unrighteousness of men. (2.) As he looked upon the condition of the Jewish people, he saw them claiming an exclusive righteousness, which, however, had manifestly no power to preserve them from being realh' unrighteous. (3.) Might not the thought also occur to him, as a Roman citizen, that the empire which was now falling to pieces through unrighteous- ness had been built up hj righteousness, bj' that love of order and that acknowledgment of rights which were the great endowment of the Roman people ? Whether we lay any stress upon this or not, it seems clear that to one contemplating the world from Paul's point of view, no thought would be so naturallv sug- gested as that of the need of the true Righteousness for the two divisions of mankind. How he expounds that God's own righteousness was shown, in Jesus Christ, to be a righteousness which men might trust in— sinners though they were— and hy trusting in it submit to it, and so receive it as to show forth the fruits of it in their own lives ; how he declares the union of men with Christ as subsisting in the divine idea and as realized by the power of tlic Spirit may be seen in the Epistle itself. The remarkable exposi- tion contained in ch. ix, x, xi illustrates the personal character of Paul, by showing the intense love for his nation which he retained through all his struggles with unbelieving Jews and Judaizing Christians, and by wliat hopes he reconciled himself to the tliought of their unbelief and their punisluuent. Having spoken of this subject, he goes on to exhibit in practical coun- sels the same love of Christian unity, moderation, and gentleness, the same respect for social order, tlie same tenderness for weak consciences, and the same ex- pectation of the Lord's coming and confidence in the future which appear more or less strongly in all his letters. See Romans, Epistle to.