A COMMENTARY
Prologue: Chapter 1:1-17
Paul first speaks of the agents involved in the gospel and its ministry. First are the human agents, i.e. the apostles in the present and the prophets in the past (verses 1 & 2). The divine Agents are the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The work and place of each Agent are outlined in verses 2-4. Apostolic ministry is shown to lie first in presenting the gospel as a message from God (verses 5-10). Then it establishes and brings forth fruit in those who are made “brethren” by the gospel (verses 11-17).
In the first verse, it is revealed that Paul’s relationship to the gospel was threefold. Unto it he was a bondservant of Jesus Christ, a called apostle, separated. He had served God before his conversion in Judaism. Released from that form of service by the gospel, he became a bondservant in Christianity. Compared with Jesus Christ, he was a mere bondservant as to the existence of the gospel in the world. Paul was a called apostle rather than a humanly appointed one. This call was heavenly in Paul’s case, rather than arising from an earthly association with Christ as with the twelve. Paul was separated to the gospel:
a. from his mother’s womb (Gal.1:1)
b. at his conversion, from the others who were with him, and
c. by the church at Antioch, from the other brethren.
Yet Paul was not the first human agent in the gospel. He followed the Old Testament prophets by whom God committed Himself to effect His revealed purpose by means of the gospel. Paul had also become an official messenger from God, declaring that he had fulfilled this promise. In holy Scripture, God had given the promise. By this new Scripture, being then written by the apostle, the fulfilment was being revealed.
The gospel originated in God, the necessary work was executed by the Son and the Holy Spirit was declaring it by apostolic gift which He conferred. It is the gospel of God and it is concerning His Son. “Concerning” (peri) seems to govern three revealed facts. It concerns Jesus Christ being the Son, Jesus Christ who is our Lord in Christianity. The lowly Jesus, who was Christ the Messiah, is the Son of God. It concerns His coming (aorist participle, passive) in fleshly life but more particularly in resurrection life. It concerns His declaration “Son of God”. There is no definite article in verse 4 in contrast to verse 3. Verse 4 has to do with the character of His Sonship, verse 3 with the person of the Son.
Though He came according to flesh, or in flesh, He did not live in the power of, or after, the flesh. “Flesh” means human nature. Hence the virgin birth. He lived His life in flesh according to the Spirit of holiness. He came into a life in the flesh within the limits of earthly promise given concerning the seed of David. His death in the flesh ended His existence in it. His going out of that life by death into resurrection marks Him off as Son of God in power. He did this in order to create a new sort of humanity, man alive in resurrected life, i.e. in the possession of eternal life. He thereby obtained the power to confer this non-fleshly life on others so as to bring them into the new creation (dead is plural). The Spirit thus declares Him to be Son of God in humanity, both in His humanity in the days of His flesh and in His new humanity in heaven.
Paul’s gospel to Rome is concerning the Lord’s person, One who is Son of God who became Man to become Lord toward His saints. It is concerning the rights which He has secured as Firstborn from the dead, a Man who is Son of God. In resurrection the same power, the Spirit of holiness, continues to operate in Him as when it caused Him to live in flesh a life of unique, perfect holiness.
In resurrection, this power operates in Him toward others. The gospel is the declaration of this, a message addressed to all. He does not yet exercise it over all men. As Author of the gospel, the Saviour exercises such eternal power to confer divine life upon His own in the present time. Through Him the apostles have been commissioned to declare this message that He has power to confer eternal life. This power operated in the messengers and caused them to present the message perfectly despite their own continuing, inherent natural deficiencies. This power also operates in all those who are “called of Jesus Christ”.
The Lord Jesus has, by His human life on earth and in resurrection, acquired a Name which has reference to all nations. The rights belonging to such a Name are not yet being exerted universally in irresistible power at a worldly level. The Name is being preached in grace in the gospel. The human agents being used to bring the gospel into the world do so by the power of grace in which they preach. Obedience to the Name is being presented now as a divine means of producing faith among all the nations. It is not being demanded by the sight of eternal power operating in a miraculous way on earth. The gospel is addressed to all the nations and by it those who receive it are being called out of the nations spiritually. These, the called of Jesus Christ, thereafter live toward God in the faith which the gospel confers and not in natural life, as do the nations which do not have faith. The call of God is in the gospel. By it the Christ is now effectively exerting His redemptive rights in acquiring a present people on earth.
To all such in Rome Paul writes. The present position is that they are beloved by God and saints by call. This corresponds to what the Lord Jesus was in flesh on earth – beloved and holy. The grace of God had already brought them into a state of peace with God. This grace then continues to operate toward them, even in the form of these holy oracles which Paul was writing to them as an apostle of Jesus Christ. This was that, even in Rome, grace might operate to further develop grace and peace in them in their spiritual experience. Grace is the eternal power in which God condescends to act on earth so that His eternal purpose might be established, in that God is now our Father and Jesus Christ is our Lord. God who was ever the Father toward the Son, even in His life in flesh, has now extended the benefits of this divine fellowship to those who are called into it by grace. Now the fellowship established between God and His called people on earth is characterised by love and holiness. God is love and God is light. He is so in experiential reality to those recipients of grace who live their secular lives in Rome under an authority which still, in the outworking of divine purpose, rules at a worldly level. Thus God, fully revealed as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus, has established His present people in a state of heavenly peace in which they can receive all the heavenly blessings resulting from divine revelation.
The eternal purpose of God had already come to light in Rome in the gospel, which had produced faith in them. Faith is the spiritual life and intelligence which emanates from God. He had reproduced His life in them in this form. The gospel had resulted in the formation of a new life in them which could be profitable for God’s eternal purpose, whereunto they were called and gifted. The New Testament was being written that this effect might be produced in them.
In verses 8-17 Paul speaks personally to them, using the first person frequently and thereafter infrequently until chapter 7. “Me” and “my” and “you” and “yours” are repeated to emphasise his relationship to them as an apostle toward saints. As such they have everything in common spiritually and he has yet much to confer upon them. As a result of this epistle, the people of God in any place or time can be made perfect spiritually to serve the purpose for which God has called and gifted them by faith. Everything that exists in this new fellowship and relationship established on earth springs from God. He produced faith in the church in Rome and produced apostleship in Paul to perfect the fellowship. In the present there are no apostles. They have been used by God to complete the Word of God (Col.1:25) and the written Word takes the place of the apostles for the realising of eternal purpose.
Not only was Paul God’s witness in the gospel of His Son but God was also Paul’s witness that he effectively rendered the service for which God had called and gifted him as an apostle. Where the work of Paul is rightly received, eternal results follow. Insofar as it was the gospel of God, verse 1, its effectiveness on earth depended on the Person and work of the Son in glorified humanity. But insofar as it was the gospel of the Son, verse 9, it had been committed to apostles to supervise the work in the gift which the Holy Spirit had uniquely given them. His continued, unremitting prayers that he might exercise his apostleship wherever faith had been produced was the proof offered that Paul was rendering his spiritual service faithfully and powerfully. He had constrained God to act by him in eternal power and wisdom amongst the churches in which he served. This epistle to Rome is an open proof that God has responded to his prayers. Both faith and spiritual growth is required for the serving of divine purpose for which God has established Christianity in the world.
The local church in Rome, called the church of God or the church of the saints in Scripture, had no apostolic founder. This shows that churches may be established on earth without apostles’ physical presence or ecclesiastical authority. Yet the apostles’ teaching remains a spiritual necessity for their growth and development into spiritual perfection. His being with them did not depend only on the longing he had for them in his heart but also upon the will of God which governed his service elsewhere. It is God and not the apostles who is in charge of the work for the realising of the eternal purpose for which He has raised apostles, founded churches and caused the Word of God to be completed by the writing of the apostles to the churches. He was not a freelance apostle who had control over where he should be or of the circumstances in which he would complete his ministry. These were matters for prayers, which would evoke a response from God Himself to open up the way for the optimum fulfilment of His purpose. Yet Paul desired to impart to them a gift, in their possession of faith, whereby they would be effective as a church of God in the world. This epistle is again the proof that God answered such a prayer.
They could also establish him in his apostleship by their response. As to being comforted together, Paul is mentioned last – “you and me”. Comfort is the fruit of toil. Paul’s toil in establishing them as the kingdom of God on earth was a means which God used to give eternal comfort to His people. Paul could comfort others with the comforts with which the apostles had been comforted by God, as in 2 Cor. 1. By his work in his tribulation, he caused the holy oracles to be written. This was the proof of, and the results produced by, the presence of God being with them on earth. Because there was an apostle Paul and because there was a church in Rome, man possesses these holy scriptures. The faith, insofar as it was mutual, is viewed collectively. The faith in them was the fruit of God Himself working by the gospel. In this power they could apprehend truly and fully the spiritual significance of the holy oracles which they had received from Paul. God was working for them and this is the means of the coming of comfort.
To summarise, the gospel resulting from the activity of God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – produces three things in the world for the realising of divine purpose.
- Firstly, by its call it produces love and holiness in man.
- Secondly, it produces grace and peace, and
- Thirdly, the comfort and the faith.
The first has reference particularly to the Father, the second to the Son and the third to the Holy Spirit. This in sum sets forth the eternal work which God is now effecting on earth by means of the Christian system. He produces His own life and nature in man by His gospel, viz. divine love and holiness. The gospel does not improve the old fleshly nature of man but confers the new upon him. Secondly, in possession of this eternal life, the people of God can enjoy divine grace and peace. Because of the resurrection and ascension of the Son in glorified humanity into heaven, heaven can now act in such a way to the people of God on earth. Thirdly, in this state of resulting spiritual maturity, the saints can grow in the knowledge of revealed truth. The love of God, the grace of the Lord Jesus and the comfort of the Holy Spirit act towards the saints and in them experientially.
Paul had a duty to obtain from the churches as well as to give to them that which God had entrusted to man for the realising of His purpose. He had been given apostolic ability and responsibility to establish and to develop the kingdom of God amongst the Gentiles. This is the garden of God on earth from which He seeks the fruit. This is the spiritual fruit which results from their possessing divine life in conditions favourable to its growth. The word of the gospel does not end with the sowing of the seed of the kingdom. By the message of the gospel a new sort of human life is produced on earth, man alive in eternal life. In order that the eternal purpose of God in this might be realised during the present time, this divine life must be caused to mature and become capable of fruitbearing. Paul was intent upon using every spiritual faculty which the Holy Spirit had given him as an apostle for this end.
For the realising of the eternal purpose for which He has established the christian system on earth, God has become the God of total revelation. His Person and His intentions are now made fully known. That His purpose might be realised, God requires a people capable of fully and perfectly appreciating divine revelation. The completed Word of God must be perfectly interpreted by the present people of God, the spiritual nation being formed amongst the Gentiles. This is the fruit which apostolic ministry to the churches can produce. This is what all the epistles to the churches, Romans to Revelation, is intended to produce. By these apostolic teachings, churches can be perfected spiritually to comprehend the work of the four evangelists.
Even in the context of Rome, Paul is not ashamed to preach the gospel. The rule of Rome was then the greatest power on earth. By it the world was subdued and governed. The gospel is a greater power, being heavenly and not earthly. It is not for subjecting man to a natural authority but is unto salvation. It is the power of God and not of men. It introduces man into a kingdom in which God’s salvation is to be enjoyed and His eternal purpose furthered. Here Paul calls it the gospel of the Christ. The glad tidings is of the Christ. The Christ by whom divine purpose is being and will be realised presents salvation to man in the present time in the form of a message. He is no longer an earthly Jewish Christ in flesh. The Christ of Christianity is a Man alive in resurrection life and is so toward both Jew and Gentile.
A message from God, of the Christ, is the result which He has produced in the world from the life and death of the Christ in flesh and from His resurrection and the conferral of apostolic gift by the Holy Spirit. Belief in this message confers upon men the virtues of this completed work of God. The virtue is not in believing but in the righteousness of God revealed in the gospel. Believing, in fact, involves an admission of spiritual failure and of the spiritual guilt with which Paul is about to charge all. It is an admission of personal inability to attain to the righteous demands of God.
This new revelation was first announced to the Jews, seeing they were the recipients of the promise that it would come. Their national rejection of the fleshly Messiah did not affect that, such is the grace of God. The righteousness of God is revealed, already perfect and complete. The gospel is not a teaching which shows how man can become righteous before God. Righteousness already exists and divine righteousness is revealed in the gospel for man’s acceptance. It exists by the perfect, completed work of God in the Christ and is offered as a free gift to all.
In the gospel is revealed
a. the power of God,
b. the righteousness of God, and
c. the wrath of God.
This is the order in which it is given as a proclamation from God. On the other hand, in its presentation to man as the way of salvation, the order is reversed. These three things “of God”, revealed in the gospel, form the subjects of chapters 1-8. The wrath of God revealed in the gospel is the subject of chapter 1:17-3:20. The revealed righteousness is the subject of 3:20-5:11. The way in which the revealed power of God now operates to realise the purpose for which God has given the gospel is set forth in chapters 5-8.
In the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed. The righteousness of God is His ability to confer His life upon man and to do so without compromising His own nature or with the power of evil. In the gospel, God is revealing the work which He has completed in Christ, by which man can be fitted spiritually to stand in His presence in righteousness for blessing and not in judgment. The righteousness of God is revealed by faith and not presented to human reason. It comes as a direct revelation from God by means of the faith which the Holy Spirit produces in the human messengers to receive it. The acceptance of the message produces similar faith in those who receive it from them and now from the words which the apostles have written.