Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Book Overview - Romans

by William Nicoll

Introduction

BY THE RIGHT REVEREND HANDLEY C.G. MOULE, D.D.

BISHOP MOULE was Principal of Ridley Hall, Cambridge, from 1881 until he was elected Norrisian Professor of Divinity, Cambridge University, in 1899. He was consecrated Bishop of Durham in 1901 and maintained the distinction given this Episcopal See by his predecessors, Bishop Lightfoot and Bishop Westcott. He wrote many expositions, commentaries, theological and devotional works and biographies. Among them were “Outlines of Christian Doctrine,” “Veni Creator,” “Cathedral, University and Other Sermons,” “Ephesian Studies.” His Biography was written by J.B. Harford and F. C. Macdonald.

The Epistle to the Romans is the most constructive writing of the Apostle Paul. This systematic exposition of the Christian Faith met the difficulties of Jewish unbelief and pagan scepticism and confirmed the confidence of Christians in the revelation of eternal facts and principles, based upon the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The problem, of faith and conduct are discussed in a truly catholic spirit without the narrowness of sectarianism. Its comprehensive outlook contemplates the unity of mankind in Christ.

Bishop Moule’s exposition of this encyclical letter is marked by the rare spiritual insight of cultured evangelicalism. He also shows how this letter, dictated by St. Paul in the house of the wealthy Gaius of Corinth, in the spring of 58 A.D., has continued to refresh and replenish the resources of Christians in every age by giving them access to the fountain of eternal life and redemption.

Preface

HE who attempts to expound the Epistle to the Romans, when his sacred task is over, is little disposed to speak about his Commentary; he is occupied rather with an ever deeper reverence and wonder over the Text which he has been permitted to handle, a Text so full of a marvellous man, above all so full of God.

But it seems needful to say a few words about the style of the running Translation of the Epistle which will be found interwoven with this Exposition.

The writer is aware that the translation is often rough and formless. His apology is that it has been done with a view not to a connected reading, but to the explanation of details. A rough piece of rendering, which would be a misrepresentation in a continuous version, because it would be out of scale with the general style, seems to be another matter when it only calls the reader’s attention to a particular point presented for study at the moment.

Again, he is aware that his rendering of the Greek article in many passages (for example, where he has ventured to explain it by “our,” “true” (etc.), is open to criticism. But he intends no more in such places than a suggestion; and he is conscious, as he has said sometimes at the place, that it is almost impossible to render the article as he has done in these cases without a certain exaggeration, which must be discounted by the reader.

The use of the article in Greek is one of the simplest and most assured things in grammar, as to its main principles. But as regards some details of the application of principle, there is nothing in grammar which seems so easily to elude the line of law.

It is scarcely necessary to say that on questions of literary criticism, which in no respect, or at most remotely, concern exposition, this Commentary says little or nothing. It is well known to literary students of the Epistle that some phenomena in the text, from the close of ch. 14 onwards, have raised important and complex questions. It has been asked whether the great Doxology (Romans 16:25-27) always stood where it now stands; whether it should stand at the close of our ch. 14; whether its style and wording allow us to regard it as contemporary with the Epistle as a whole, or whether they indicate that it was written later in St. Paul’s course; whether our fifteenth and sixteenth chapters, while Pauline, are not out of place in an Epistle to Rome; in particular, whether the list of names in ch. 16 is compatible with a Roman destination.

These questions, with one exception, that which affects the list of names, are not even touched upon in the present Exposition. The expositor, personally convinced that the pages we know as the Epistle to the Romans are not only all genuine but all intimately coherent, has not felt himself called to discuss, in a devotional writing, subjects more proper to the lecture room and the study; and which certainly would be out of place in the ministry of the pulpit.

Meantime, those who care to read a masterly debate on the literary problems in question may consult the recently published volume (1893) “Biblical Studies,” by the late Bishop Lightfoot of Durham. That volume contains (pp. 287-374) three critical Essays (1869, 1871), two by Bishop Lightfoot, one by the late Dr. Hort, on “The Structure and Destination of the Epistle to the Romans.” The two illustrious friends, - Hort criticising Lightfoot, Lightfoot replying to Hort, - examine the phenomena of Romans 15:1-33; Romans 16:1-27. Lightfoot advocates the theory that St. Paul, some time after writing the Epistle, issued an abridged edition for wider circulation, omitting the direction to Rome, closing the document with our ch. 14, and then (not before) writing, as a finale, the great Doxology. Hort holds to the practical entirety of the Epistle as we have it, and reasons at length for the contemporaneousness of Romans 16:25-27 with the rest.

We may note here that both Hort and Lightfoot contend for the conciliatory aim of the Roman Epistle. They regard the great passage about Israel (9-11) as in some sense the heart of the Epistle, and the doctrinal passages preceding this as all more or less meant to bear on the relations not only of the Law and the Gospel, but of the Jew and the Gentile as members of the one Christian Church. There is great value in this suggestion, explained and illustrated as it is in the Essays in question. But the thought may easily be worked to excess. It seems plain to the present writer that when the Epistle is studied from within its deepest spiritual element, it shows us the Apostle fully mindful of the largest aspects of the life and work of the Church, but also, and yet more, occupied with the problem of the relation of the believing sinner to God. The question of personal salvation was never, by St. Paul, forgotten in that of Christian policy.

To return for a moment to this Exposition, or rather to its setting; it may be doubted whether, in imagining the dictation of the Epistle to be begun and completed by St. Paul within one day we have not imagined “a hard thing.” But at worst it is not an impossible thing, if the Apostle’s utterance was as sustained as his thought.

It remains only to express the hope that these pages may serve in some degree to convey to their readers a new Tolle, Lege for the divine Text itself; if only by suggesting to them sometimes the words of St. Augustine, “To Paul I appeal from all interpreters of his writings.”

Chapter 1

TIME, PLACE, AND OCCASION

IT is the month of February, in the year of Christ 58. In a room in the house of Gaius, a wealthy Corinthian Christian, Paul the Apostle, having at his side his amanuensis Tertius, addresses himself to write to the converts of the mission at Rome.

The great world meanwhile is rolling on its way. It is the fourth year of Nero; he is Consul the third time, with Valerius Messala for his colleague; Poppaea has lately caught the unworthy Prince in the net of her bad influence. Domitius Corbulo has just resumed the war with Parthia, and prepares to penetrate the highlands of Armenia. Within a few weeks, in the full spring, an Egyptian imposter is about to inflame Jerusalem with his Messianic claim, to lead four thousand fanatics into the desert, and to return to the city with a host of thirty thousand men, only to be totally routed by the legionaries of Felix. For himself, the Apostle is about to close his three months’ stay at Corinth; he has heard of plots against his life, and will in prudence decline the more direct route from Cenchrea by sea, striking northward for Philippi, and thence over the Aegaean to Troas. Jerusalem he must visit, if possible, before May is over, for he has by him the Greek collections to deliver to the poor converts of Jerusalem. Then, in the vista of his further movements, he sees Rome, and thinks with a certain apprehension, yet with longing hope, about life and witness there.

A Greek Christian woman is about to visit the City, Phoebe, a ministrant of the mission at Cenchrea. He must commend her to the Roman brethren; and a deliberate Letter to them is suggested by this personal need.

His thoughts have long gravitated to the City of the World. Not many months before, at Ephesus, when he had "purposed in the Spirit" to visit Jerusalem, he had said, with an emphasis which his biographer remembered, "I must also see Rome"; [Acts 19:21] "I must," in the sense of a divine decree, which had written this journey down in the plan of his life. He was assured too by circumstantial and perhaps by supernatural signs, that he had "now no more place in these parts" [Romans 15:23] - that is, in the Eastern Roman world where hitherto all his labour had been spent. The Lord, who in former days had shut Paul up to a track which led him through Asia Minor to the Aegaean, and across the Aegaean to Europe, [Acts 16:1-40] now prepared to guide him, though by paths which His servant knew not, from Eastern Europe to Western, and before all things to the City. Amongst these providential preparations was a growing occupation of the Apostle’s thought with persons and interests in the Christian circle there. Here, as we have seen, was Phoebe, about to take ship for Italy. Yonder, in the great Capital, were now resident again the beloved and faithful Aquila and Prisca, no longer excluded by the Claudian edict, and proving already, we may fairly conclude, the central influence in the mission, whose first days perhaps dated from the Pentecost itself, when Roman "strangers" [Acts 2:10] saw and heard the wonders and the message of that hour. At Rome also lived other believers personally known to Paul, drawn by unrecorded circumstances to the Centre of the world. "His well-beloved" Epaenetus was there; Mary, who had sometimes tried hard to help him; Andronicus, and Junias, and Herodion, his relatives; Amplias and Stachys, men very dear to him; Urbanus, who had worked for Christ at his side; Rufus, no common Christian in his esteem, and Rufus’ mother, who had once watched over Paul with a mother’s love. All these rise before him as he thinks of Phoebe, and her arrival, and the faces and the hands which at his appeal would welcome her in the Lord, under the holy freemasonry of primeval Christian fellowship.