In the epistle before us we find the grand and systematic statement of the Spirit of God as to the ground of the relationship, and the manner in which a sinner, saved and justified, is brought to God in Christ. Necessarily, then, before entering into the work of Christ, and action of God in justifying the sinner, and bringing him to Himself, it examines the state of the sinner in God’s eye, whom He is about to justify.
The epistle divides itself in the following manner: Chapter 1:1-17 is a preface, in which the apostle tells us the nature and character of the Gospel, and his desires towards the saints at Rome. The Gospel is the gospel of God-the good tidings of what He is Himself—His power in salvation to everyone who believes. It is the righteousness of God, when man had been proved to have no righteousness of his own. God, in the free acting of His grace and love, was righteously consistent with Himself; not compromising His nature in any wise, in justifying the ungodly, and bringing him to Himself in the Son of His love.
Verse 18 is complete in itself. It tells that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven-not now in temporary and partial judgments on earth, as known to the Jew, such as the deluge, judgments on Egypt, Korah, Mahan, and Abiram, &c. (see Luke 13:1-51There were present at that season some that told him of the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2And Jesus answering said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans, because they suffered such things? 3I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. 4Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? 5I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. (Luke 13:1‑5)). It is now revealed from heaven on “all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men;” i.e., Gentiles, “Who hold the truth in unrighteousness;” i.e., the Jew more especially, but in principle it holds good towards all. It affords the thesis, or subject matter of, from verse 19 to 20th verse of chapter 3. In this division he shows how this wrath of God was deserved and earned by all men, Jew, Philosopher, and Gentile. Mark this, the wrath is only “revealed,” not yet manifested.
In the close of chap. 3, from 21St verse, the apostle shows how God had met this state of things in His own righteousness, in virtue of the death and blood shedding of Christ. Justifying freely in His grace those who believed in Jesus. Presenting this righteousness “unto all;” this is its aspect. Then its effect “upon all” that believe. The question of sins is taken up from this point to chap. 5:11, the true character of Christian faith, i.e. in a God of resurrection, who had raised up His Son, “who was delivered for our offenses, and raised again for our justification.” Righteousness was by faith apart from the deeds of the law.
From chap. 5:12, to the end of chap. 8 the question of “sin” (a sinful state, or condition: a nature) is the subject.
Then the second grand division of the epistle commences chapters 9-11. Here he is reconciling the doctrine of “no difference;” sin having obliterated all distinction between a Jew and a Gentile, with the fulfillment of the special and unconditional promises made to the fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to David, &c.
The third marked division is from chap. 12 to the close of the epistle. This is occupied in practical details founded on the previous teaching.
We will now look more into the details. Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, speaks of himself, in the first verse, in two characters. A “called apostle”— (omit the words “to be” in verses 1-9). His calling was that of an apostle, as the calling of those in verse 9 was that of saints; they were saints by the calling of God. He was also “separated unto the gospel of God.” The historic account of the first you get in Acts 9 That of the second in Acts 13, when the Holy Ghost said “Separate me Barnabas and Saul, for the work whereunto I have called them.” God had separated him from his mother’s womb, as well (Gal. 1); but this separation to the gospel was a definite thing in Acts 13.
Here let me say a little as to the course of events which led to the moment when the gospel of God was communicated to Paul; and this remarkable vessel called of God, to be its pattern and exponent.
We know something of the history of God’s varied trial of man, as recorded in scripture, from the garden of Eden to the ninth chapter of Acts. During this time He tested man in various ways, to see if by any means he was recoverable from the state of sin into which the fall had plunged him. Before the flood He left man to himself; preserving a line of witnesses throughout. The result of this was that He filled the earth with corruption and violence (Gen. 6); and God swept the whole away by the waters of the flood. Noah found grace in His sight, and himself and his family were reprieved out of this judgment, and the earth was re-peopled in his family. Men gave themselves up to idolatry after this judgment; the man in whose hands the government of the earth was placed (Noah) having failed. The knowledge of the one true God seemed lost. ‘God then chose one man, Abram, to be His witness, and in him the nation of Israel that sprang from him. They were to be His witnesses in the midst of an idolatrous world. This nation, after centuries of bondage, are redeemed, and brought out of Egypt, that the Lord might dwell amongst them. (Ex. 29) Under grace, from the time of their redemption till the 19th chap. of Exodus, they take upon themselves the keeping of the law, saying, “All that the Lord hath spoken will we do.” Accepting the law as the conditions of their relationship with the Lord. They break it ere it was received through the lawgiver; bow down and worship the golden calf, and fail. (Ex. 32) The Lord then gave them the priesthood. As soon as the priests are consecrated they offer strange fire before the Lord (Num. 11) Israel is, at last, brought into the land of Canaan, and established with a mighty hand. But here again they fail-sinking down to serve the gods of the nations that were there before them. (See the Book of Judges.) He then sends prophets to recall them to the observance of the law, and them they stoned. Last of all God sends His Son, saying “They will reverence my son when they see him.” You know how He was treated. They cast Him out, and crucified Him. On the Cross, in the surpassing grace of His heart, He prays for His murderers, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”. This special grace is answered in the opening of the Acts of the Apostles. Peter, by the Holy Ghost come down at Pentecost, says— “And now, brethren, I wot that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers.” And he calls upon them to repent, and God would send back Jesus (Acts 3:19-2119Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; 20And he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: 21Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. (Acts 3:19‑21)), their slain Messiah, and establish the kingdom they had before refused. He gives them thus another trial—the offer of the Holy Ghost that Jesus would return. The answer to this proposal we find in Acts 7 where Stephen is stoned. This act sums up the guilt of man under trial for 4000 years. Stephen, in a few words, sums up the history of God’s patient trial of man in the peculiar and special culture of the nation of Israel. “Ye stiff necked, and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost; as your fathers did so do ye. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which showed before of the coming of the Just One, of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers; who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it.” Thus, a broken law, slain prophets, a murdered Christ, and a resisted Spirit, give us the result of God’s trial of man! Sin had risen to its appalling height in crucifying the Son of God. His grace had risen higher and higher till it super-abounded in the offers of mercy, rising triumphantly over the sin; and the grace of God, as far as having a response in man’s sinful heart, is exhausted.
At this moment there was a man standing in the crowd which was thus sending a message after the rejected Christ—saying, “We will not have this man to reign over us.” This man was the expression of the hatred of man’s natural heart under a religious character, to God and good. His heart was filled with a quiet determined purpose against that blessed name. That purpose was to wipe out the name of Jesus if he could from the face of the earth! The daring rebellion of this man—this chief of sinners—against the testimony of the Holy Ghost come down from heaven, witnessing the exaltation of the despised Jesus of Nazareth, had reached its culminating point. We read of him “breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord.” “Being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities.” At this moment a light shines out of the highest heaven on him, from the face of Jesus Christ in glory, and envelopes this man: stops him in his career of madness. The God of all grace asserts the Potter’s right with this chief of sinners, to make of him a “chosen vessel” unto Himself. His mouth is closed forever after with the riches of the grace, of which he was the exponent and expression. Sin had come to its culminating point, and the grace of the living God—unsought for by this man—claimed him as its own! It was to him that the richest unfolding of the gospel of God is announced in all its fullness.
But to return. He says, “separated unto the gospel of God.” This definitely took place in Acts 13:22As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. (Acts 13:2), when “the Holy Ghost said, separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them.”
Here too we may notice, that everything, as the gospel itself, comes from God’s side. It is “the gospel of God,” “the power of God,” “the wrath of God,” “the judgment of God,” “the righteousness of God,” “the wrath of God,” “the glory of God,” &c. This gospel had been promised before, but it had not come. The subject of it was Jesus—David’s son according to the flesh—but God’s own Son in power, by resurrection of the dead. If we leave out “the” in verse 4, before “resurrection,” it gives the sense more accurately. Jesus is declared Son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness which characterized Him in life-and by resurrection, whether His own or of the dead (Lazarus &c.), whom He raised.