The Pulpit Commentary — Romans — Section 49

I. THE 'll"(IR!ffill' OF DlAGES ORIGINATES lN A NATURAL CRAVING FOR A 81!:NSI!ltE EM.MDJllfil,"T OF DEITY. Abst.rnct ideas have little charm or power for men, and the 'IVClrship of fol'N! or humanity can never attract the multitudes. The yearning for a Yisible God = answered in the Shechinah, and in the many appearances of the angel C'f JehC'vah, and hl\8 received fullest recognition in the manifestation of God in Christ, The spirituality of Divine worship was to be preserved in Israel by the commandment not t-0 re.AI' graven images, and the ascension of Christ to heaven, withdrawing the Saviour from mortal eyes, is likewise intended to protect Christianity from the dangera liable to a system whose vot~ries should "walk by sight" rather than by faith. 'l'he Scriptures and universal hist.ory demonstrat.e the rapidity with which, as in the Roman Catholic Church to-day, men's homage and devotion are transferred from the Being represented, t.o the statue or figure which at first st.ood innocently enough as his symbol, There is a danger of modern literature seeking too much " to know Christ after the flesh," instead of relying upon the assistance furnished by the teaching of the Spirit, the invisible Christ dwelling in the heart. IT. THE TO"DEXCY OF mAGE-WORSHIP IS TO DEGRADE RELIGION, The argument of Xenophanes, ridiculing the Homeric theology that if sheep and oxen were to picture a god, the_r would im8<,"llle him like one of themselves, only showed that natural religion, in framing a notion of Deity, rightly attributes to him the highest attributes of personality and intelligence conceivable. And the Apostle Paul accused the Athenians of unreasonableness in fancying that the great Father could be supposed to be less powerful and intelligent than his children. But without supernatural aid man sinks lower and lower in his conceptions ; the direction of evolution in religion is J,;rwnv.ard, not upward, except where there is a manifest interposition of the Supreme I>eing. Note how strenuously the prophets bad to combat the desire of Israel to ally themselves in worship with the abominable idolatries of the nations around. Man, selected as God's representative, becomes man in his lowest moods and merely animal existence; the transition is easy to the wise-looking owl and soaring eagle, then to the cow and the dog, and fin.ally t.o the serpent and the fish. The unity of God is lost in the multiplicity of idols, and his power and righteousness swamped in bestial stupidity and depmvity. Religions rites became scenes of licentiousness. " The light that was in men has turned t.o darkness, and how great is that darkness I " ill TBl!: WOJISHIPPEB GRADUALLY ASSnnLATES BDIBELF TO THE OBJECT WOR- SHIPPED. Man does not rise higher in thought and life than the Deity before whom he bows and to whom he submits himself; but he may, and too generally does, adopt the worst features of the character and conduct of his gods. What we constantly meditate upon transforms us into its own lineaments. Where the lower animals are deified, there the passions of the brutes are rampant, and a merely animal existence is lived. The lie substituted for the truth shunts man's behaviour on to another line, and a descending plane lands him in moral ruin. " They that make the gods are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them." The revelation God gives of himself in his Word operates reversely on a similar principle, so that "we beholding as in a glass the true glory of the Lord, ~re changed into the sa!°e image;" and, the ima~e of God in man being restored, the likeness to God to which we are made to attain grows unto perfection, till" we shall be like him, when we shall see him as he is."- 8. R. A. Ver. L-~ author. Before appreciating any important work, we like to learn all we can of ite author. Hence the study of the Acts of the Apostles ie the beet possible p!"eparation for the study of this great Epistle to the Romans. The history given by Luke is like the portrait of _the apostle ~refixed to his Epistles; it is bett_er inde~d a. tbowiand times than any picture producible by art. Let us, ae a suggestive subject, begin with a 11ketch of the apostle's career, fitted as it is to help us in subsequent homilies. And- L PAtJL'II JllBTORY BEFORE BIS OO:NVEBBIOl'I. In these earlier days he did not go by the name of Paul, but by that of Saul. The change adopted betokens the cosmopolitan character which he contracted 88 apostle. It wa~ the ne!Lreet Greek word to hia original Hebrew name. While a fanatical Jew, he would have scorned any 11uch eccc,mmudation u, prevailing custom; but once he became " the apostle of the elf'. r.1-32.J THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO TlIE ROMANS. 43