It was ordered in the wisdom of God that no apostle should plant the gospel in the imperial city. Rome cannot boast truthfully of a church apostolic in its origin, like Jerusalem, Philippi, Corinth, Ephesus, and many more less considerable. We know that on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Ghost was first given, there were Roman Jews, sojourning in Jerusalem, who heard the gospel there. (Acts 2; compare also Rom. 16:7.) These may have carried the glad tidings westward, if not before at least when the persecution that arose on the case of Stephen scattered all save the apostles. We are sure that some who then dispersed went to Phenice and Cyprus as well as to Antioch, and that at this last place they preached to Greeks and not to Jews only.
But whatever the particular means used to make known Christ there, it is certain that till Paul wrote and afterward came to Rome, no apostle had visited that city. Yet an evidently considerable number of saints were there; and in my judgment, the epistle itself affords clear and full indications that they consisted of persons from among Jews as well as Gentiles.
These were among the circumstances which drew out an epistle from the great apostle which yields to no other in importance. Hence have we here so comprehensive a treatise, and withal so fundamental; not on Church relationship, but man's state as a sinner, and then his justification by the work, and death and resurrection of Christ; that is, the privileges of individual saints through redemption, as well as the total ruin of man and his need of this mighty intervention of God in the gospel. Had the apostle laid the foundation of the work at Rome, had he gone there, as he had ardently wished, to impart some spiritual gift, we could scarcely have had such a development as we now possess. For in either case he would naturally have taught them face to face what is now embodied forever in the epistle. Before he could pay them a visit and establish them orally, their state called out this remarkable fullness of truth from the rudiments of truth upwards. Their mingled composition of Jews and Gentiles required the question of the law to be solved as to both justification and walk, as well as the reconciliation of the actual display of indiscriminate grace in the gospel with the special promises to Israel. It demanded a full explanation of human responsibility, whether in Jew or in Greek. For the same reason too it was needed, here especially, to set forth chiefly in exhortation the general walk of the Christians in relation to each other and to the powers that be (at that time heathen), with the peremptory claims of holiness on the one hand, and on the other the true nature and limits of brotherly forbearance in things indifferent.
The salutation or address of the apostle is unusually full. “Paul, a bondman of Jesus Christ, a called apostle, separated unto God's gospel, which he promised before by his prophets in holy scripture, concerning his Son, that came of David's seed as to flesh, that was marked out God's Son in power as to spirit of holiness by resurrection of [the] dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, by whom we received grace and apostleship, for obedience of faith among all the nations, in behalf of his name; among whom are ye also, called of Jesus Christ: to all that are in Rome, beloved of God, called saints, grace to you and peace from God our Father and [the] Lord Jesus Christ.” (Ver. 1-7.)
“Bondman of Jesus Christ” is the boast of one who knew the true holy liberty of grace as perhaps no other heart was taught and enjoyed so well. This was a general designation and should be true, is true, of each Christian. But Paul next speaks of himself as a “called apostle.” Apostleship was not successional like a Jewish priest, nor elect of the assembly like the seven who cared for tables at Jerusalem: still less was it a question of self-assumption He was an apostle by calling as the saints were called. (Ver. 7.) No doubt, from his mother's womb Saul of Tarsus had been separated, as he was afterward called by God's grace. But here it appears to me that the separation was more distinctly “for God's gospel,” and therefore may refer rather to Acts 13:2. God's glad tidings is a precious truth, the direct and explicit contradiction of man's natural thought of Him who gives to all liberally and upbraids not. Doubtless this can only be in and through Christ; still it is God who loves, gives, sends: it is His gospel. What a blessed starting-point for the apostle! What an exhaustless fountain-head! But if this fullness of spontaneous and active love in God toward man be a truth ever new by reason of the constant prevalence of human thoughts even in the saints, it was no new thing to God. (Ver. 2.) It was late in the world's history when this gospel went forth; but He had promised it before through His prophets in holy writ—through the prophets who ever appear of old when all on man's part was hopeless. So one of the earliest that wrote prophecies said, “O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thy help. I will be thy king; where is any other that may save thee?” So another, the last of them, wrote, “I am Jehovah, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.” Had the Jews, had the priests even, despised His name? “From the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same, my name shall be great among the Gentiles.” Such is a sample of what He proclaimed beforehand through His prophets. Space would fail even to cite a small portion. What went before as far as this verse notices was God's promise (for the law is not yet touched on); His gospel is not promise but accomplishment. Before Christ and His work, it could not be more than promised. Now, whatever be the promises, in Him is the Yea and in Him the Amen.
How can these things be? What can account either for such precious promises, or for the still more precious accomplishment on which God's gospel is founded and goes forth to man? The answer is clear, worthy, and amply sufficient. All turns on the Son of God: His glad tidings are concerning Him. (Ver. 3.) His person comes before us here in two ways: first, as born of the seed of David according to the flesh which He had condescended to; secondly, as defined or declared Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by resurrection. These two views of our Lord are respectively in relation to what we have just seen—the promises and the gospel. The true Beloved, the Son of David, came, object and fulfiller and fulfillment of every promise of God; but man, and especially the people who had the promises, received Him not, but cast Him out even to death, the death of the cross. God, infinitely glorified therein, raised Him up who had already raised dead persons, and will raise all. “For as the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth, even so the Son quickeneth whom he will.” Thus in every way resurrection marks Him out as Son of God in power, pre-eminently so when He rose in His own person after being crucified in weakness, and this according to the Spirit of holiness which characterized Him all the days of His flesh. Thus, as the coming of Christ was the presentation of the promise, God's gospel supposes not only the divine glory of His person but the mighty power of His resurrection which demonstrates the value and efficacy of His death. (Ver. 4.) In life sin and Satan touched Him not, who ever walked in the Spirit and according to the word of God; on the cross, made sin for us, He annulled him who had the power of death, though resurrection alone adequately determines His power and glorious person.
Jesus consequently, risen from the dead in power, acts as Lord and Christ, “our Lord,” “by whom we have received grace and apostleship.” (Ver. 5.) It is He who sends from on high. As once on earth, Lord of the harvest, He sent forth first the twelve and afterward other seventy also; so ascended He gave gifts to men. Nor was it only that the apostolic call was itself a mark of grace. In Paul's case the grace that arrested and quickened him to God was at one and the same time with the choice of him as a witness to all men of what be had seen and heard. Such a call could not, so to speak, but be of deeper character and larger sphere than that of others who had been appointed of the Lord while here below. Hence it was “for obedience of faith” (not exactly that which faith leads and strengthens to, but faith-obedience, the heart bowing to the divine message of His grace) “in all the nations” as the scene of testimony. Taken out from among the people and the nations, to these last the Lord sent him, as we are told in Acts 26 Again, we are here told, it was for or “on behalf of the name of Christ.”
Such was his passport: what was theirs? “Among whom ye also, called of Jesus Christ.” They were among the nations, and his commission was toward all the nations. Was he an apostle? So were they saints, not by birth nor by ordinance, but by the call of Jesus Christ who had called him as apostle. (Ver. 6.)
This entitled Paul then to address “all that are in Rome beloved of God; called saints;” this made it his heart's joy, as it was the Holy Ghost's inspiring him, to wish them “grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” (Ver. 7.) These privileges they had tasted already through the faith of Christ; but the apostle owns himself their debtor and proceeds to put to their account that which would enrich them exceedingly. May we too enjoy increasingly Him who is their source through the One who alone can make Him known!