Question: Rom. 1:2-4; 16:25, 26. Why is it that in the first of the scriptures we read “by His prophets in holy scriptures,” and in the second, “by prophetic scriptures”? The distinction is slurred over and lost in the Auth. Version as well as the Revised: how do you account for the difference between them, which is so plain in the Greek? An old disciple.
Answer: The key is given, as generally, by the context. God’s gospel, or glad tidings, He had promised before; this was therefore through His prophets in holy scriptures. It centers in His Son, come of David’s seed according to flesh, marked out Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by resurrection. While Jesus Christ our Lord then fulfilled the promises, He brought in deliverance from sin and therefore from death by power according to the Spirit of holiness, as even the O. T. prophets had foreshown. So far says Rom. 1:2-4. But 16:25, 26 goes much higher. For therein the apostle, without opening out the mystery or secret kept silent eternally as it had been, here tells the saints in Rome it was now manifested and by prophetic scriptures made known unto all the nations for faith-obedience, not by man’s wit or imagination but according to command of the eternal God. The development of this hidden secret was mainly given to the Ephesian and the Colossian saints; but Paul’s gospel as he calls it, yea the preaching of Jesus Christ in general to establish the saints in the faith, was in accord with it. Here therefore we necessarily pass beyond all the O. T. revelation, and are told, not of “the scriptures of the prophets” which is an incorrect rendering and a false sense, but of “prophetic scriptures.” These are in fact definitely distinguished from even all the prophets of the Old Testament, and refer solely to scriptures of the N. T. which reveal the secret of Christ Head over all things to the church which is His body. Never does the O. T. make this known, as the apostle declares here and elsewhere. Now it is revealed, and by prophetic scriptures (that is, the epistles, &c., of the N.T. generally) made known, not to Israel as the O. T. was, but expressly unto all the nations.