1. Paul. It was the custom anciently to place the name of the writer at the beginning of an epistle, instead of at the close, as is done now. Acts xxiii. 26. The letters missive of churches now retain the old method. The change of the Apostle's name from Saul to Paul has been variously accounted for; either as a compliment to Sergius Paulus, Acts xiii. 7, 9, 13, or as a preference of a Gentile to a Hebrew name, which is a more probable supposition. Paul was an apostle to the heathen world, and he was willing to conform to their taste in matters of indifference. 1 Cor. ix. 21, 22. The critics cite many cases of a similar transformation; as of Tarphon into Trypho, Joiakim into Alkimos. — A servant of Jesus Christ. Tischendorf edits, Christ Jesus. The original is slave; that being the condition of most servants in the East. It was a term of honor rather than shame, when connected with a master of great dignity. The slaves of kings were often their chief officers, and sometimes prime ministers. The obvious sense is, that Paul was wholly devoted for life, body and soul, to Jesus Christ, as his master; who had subdued and converted him by his power; a service not of bondage,

but of perfect liberty.*- Called to be an apostle. Chosen an apostle. The italics of the translators are needless here, as in many other instances. The Apostle, with a becoming dignity, advances at the outset his credentials and claims to be heard, as an authorized messenger of God. Some have conjectured that Paul was the true substitute for Judas Iscariot, and that the choice of Matthias, Acts i. 26, was not made with the Divine sanction. Be that as it may, the appointment of Paul to the sacred office was an undoubted interposition of God, bearing in every particular the most unquestionable marks of miraculous agency. Acts ix. He was equal in office to Peter and the other Apostles. It was not a service he had voluntarily assumed, or in which he stood on his own word or authority; he bore the commission of Heaven, and none might innocently gainsay his message. was not he, it was God, it was Christ, empowering him, as a chosen vessel,

It

When writers call the Apostle boastful, they forget that he couples with his own name servant, and that his boasting was not that of self-esteem, but of exultant gratitude, and conscious authority and power, for which he was accountable, and which men were to respect,

not for his sake, but for God's sake and their own weal.

to bear the Gospel to the Gentile world. Jesus and the Twelve uttered their message primarily "to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." The special designation of Paul was to preach the Gospel to all nations. Separated unto, i. e. set apart, or consecrated, to the office of proclaiming the good news from heaven. Jer.

i. 5; Acts xiii. 2; Gal. i. 15. The whole stress of the verse is, at once to establish his claims as an apostle, and also, as Theophylact said, “to express his humble-mindedness, and to intimate that he had not found because he had sought, but that he had come because he was called." John xv. 16, 19. Negatively, in Gal. i. 1, and positively, in 1 Cor. i. 1, 2 Cor. i. 1, Eph. i. 1, Col. i. 1, 1 Tim. i. 1, 2 Tim. i. 1, he reiterated his apostolic authority, as coming, "not of men, neither by man," but "by the will of God," "by the commandment of God our Saviour, and Lord Jesus Christ."

2. Which clearly refers to Gospel.-Promised afore. This phrase will be better understood after it is known that it is all comprised in one verb in the original Greek. The simple word means to bring a message, or news, tidings; compounded with a particle, meaning well or good, it signifies to bring good news; and hence comes its secondary meaning, to announce the Gospel, to preach Christianity, which is preeminently glad tidings, to mankind; and compounded with two other Greek particles, meaning before, and upon or to, it occurs in the text, and should be rendered proclaimed or announced before. Thus Stuart, "which he formerly, or in former times, declared or published." The word afore in English has either become obsolete, or fallen into vulgar use,

and before, in all correct speech and writing, has taken its place. By his prophets in the holy Scriptures. The term prophets here includes all the writers of the Old Testament, whether lawgivers, like Moses, psalmists, like David, or professed predictors of future events, like Isaiah; and the holy Scriptures mean all their writings. This was a sentence of conciliation for the Jewish Christians, to soothe their easily alarmed prejudices at the admission of Gentiles into the Church, by proclaiming the antiquity and Hebrew sanction of the Gospel promises. Every part of the declaration is guarded and weighty. As Erasmus observes, "the promise is not made by any body whatever, but by God himself; nor through any persons whatever without distinction, but through his true and divine prophets; nor in any ordinary way, but in the sacred Scriptures." Gen. xii. 3; xxii. 18; Isa. xi., liii., lv., lxi. ; Jer. xxxi. 31-34; Dan. vii. 13, 14; ix. 24-27; Joel ii. 28–32; Micah v. 2; Hag. ii. 6-9; Zech. ix. 9; Mal. iii. 1; iv. 5, 6. These references are but specimens of a general character of prediction, anticipation, hope of the Messiah, which runs quite through the Hebrew Scriptures, from the first book to the last. This ruling idea constitutes a part of the very substratum of the elder dispensation. The testimony of the prophets is often appealed to by our Lord and his disciples. Luke xxiv. 25-27,44-46; Acts x. 43; xviii. 28; xxvi. 22, 23; Tit. i. 2; 1 Pet. i. 10; 2 Pet. i. 19-21. For the general expectation, not only among the Jews, but in all nations, of the coming of a great deliverer about the time of the advent of Jesus Christ, see the comments on Matt. ii. 2.

3. Concerning his Son Jesus Christ.

This connects with verse 1, the intermediate clause being parenthetical, or at least explanatory, and the whole reads, separated unto the Gospel of God concerning his Son Jesus Christ. Tholuck observes, "We find here, what often occurs in the writings of this author, a large group of coördinate clauses. With reference to these, we remark, that Paul's peculiar mode of thinking, and consequently also of expression, is most aptly compared to a throng of waves, where, in ever loftier swell, one billow presses close upon the other. Like all men of lively temperament, he ever seeks to heighten the impressions of his words, by appending new explanations or definitions.” Which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, or who was born of the seed of David as to his natural descent. All the ingenious commenting of Olshausen and others upon these words, to extort the idea that the whole human nature of Jesus is here meant, mind as well as body, in contrast with his divine nature, as expressed in the next verse, is purely groundless and gratuitous. It is an ex post facto, or subsequent notion, inferred from one of the greatest corruptions of the Christian doctrine, and having no basis in the living text of God's word. The simple statement is, that Jesus was, so far as his early parentage was concerned, born of Mary, the descendant of David, and it is a work of supererogation to go behind that statement. The Apostle might have a twofold purpose; first, to negative that early heresy that the Messiah did not come in actual flesh and blood; 1 John iv. 2, 3; 2 John 7; and secondly, to dignify Christ in the eyes of the Jews, and to show the fulfilment of ancient prophecy by

the fact of his sonship to King David. See Matt. i. 1; ix. 27; xii. 23; xv. 22; xxii. 45; Luke xviii. 39; John vii. 42; and many other texts, which prove that by the Son of David was understood the long-desired Son of David, or the Messiah. The assertion of Barnes, that "the expression according to the flesh' is applied to no other one in the New Testament but to Jesus Christ," and the deduction from that, that the phrase has some very deep and sphinx-like idea in it, is all confuted by Rom. ix. 3, where the same words are employed relating to the Jews.

6

4. Declared. Margin reads determined. The word in Greek means to define, limit, determine, decree. Horizon in English is one of its derivatives. It occurs only eight times in the Christian Scriptures, either as a verb or participle, and six of the eight are in one writer, Luke. In Luke xxii. 22, Acts xi. 29 and xvii. 26, it is rendered in the Common Version, determined; in Acts ii. 23, determinate; Acts x. 42 and xvii. 31, ordained; Heb. iv. 7, limited; and in the present instance, declared. The meaning seems to refer to his being proved or clearly shown to be the Son of God, not as it respects the original decree or ordination of God, but in the sight and to the satisfaction of mankind. The mode in which this was done is stated in the next clause of the verse, viz. with power; powerfully declared to be the Son of God. Col. i. 29. So Luther and many others make the phrase adverbial. The point in which he was thus declared is then stated, to wit, according to the spirit of holiness, or, as to his, Christ's, holy spirit; it was there the stress of the proof fell. And then the means by which the declaration and proof were

given follows, i. e. by the resurrection from the dead. By printing the word Spirit with a capital, it is intimated that the Holy Spirit of God is signified, whereas the words, according to the spirit of holiness, are contrasted with those in the foregoing verse, according to the flesh, and simply mean the holy spirit of our Lord, as the sanctified and sent of the Father. The resurrection is appealed to, in numberless places, as the "confirmation strong" of his being the Messiah, the Son of God. There were many other proofs, but this one took the lead, and more powerfully demonstrated his claims as a divine teacher. Matt. xii. 38-40; xxviii. 18; Acts ii. 22-36; x. 39-42; xiii. 30-37; 1 Cor. xv. 14-17; 2 Cor. xiii. 4; 1 Pet. iii. 18. It is perhaps needless to add, but for the cavil made, that the resurrection of Jesus to life and immortality proves far more than the restoration to life of Lazarus, or any one else, because it occurred under widely different circumstances, and was followed by consequences altogether peculiar. The miracles of Christ were all shining proofs of his divine mission, so declared by him, so received by the people, so preached by his Apostles, so believed in the Church Universal; but the miracle of the resurrection was the superlative and crowning witness that he was the Son of God.

whit behind the very chiefest Apostles" of the original band; for if they did not assume their apostleship of themselves, but received it from the Master, so did he, under even more solemn circumstances. Acts ix. One of the most burning convictions of his mind was the inconceivable grace which had converted him from a blasphemer and persecutor to an Apostle. 1 Tim. i. 13-15. The word grace is elsewhere translated, in some cases, favor. See Luke i. 30; ii. 52; Acts ii. 47; vii. 10; xxv. 3. Uniformity of rendering is important to a good translation, wherever the original words signify the same thing.

For obedience to the faith. The marginal reading is, to the obedience of faith. Our author here touches for the first time with a gentle hand upon the grand theme of his letter, “the obedience of faith, as contradistinguished from legal obedience." It was his office emphatically, as an Apostle "among all nations," or to the Gentiles as well as the Jews, to proclaim the obedience of faith, to convince men to obey the Gospel, not as a form or ritual, but as a faith, as a great internal and spiritual principle of life, peace, and progress. He afterwards brings out this idea into mountainlike prominence, and accumulates upon it the mighty powers of his genius and inspiration. For his name, i. e. for his sake; for his glory. "In order that, by means of the propagation of the faith among all nations, Christ may be glorified."

6. The called of Jesus Christ, i. e. Christians. The mischievous afterthought of the commentators, and their prying curiosity, whether it means Christians by profession, or Christians in reality, disciples externally called and enjoying the out

ward means and privileges of Christianity or disciples effectually called and inwardly sanctified and sealed unto the day of redemption, may all be spared. It is a substantive term meaning Christians; and when we can decide what we mean at the present day by that term, we can ascertain beyond doubt what Paul intended when he said, "the called of Jesus Christ." It was not for the Apostle, it is not for any mortal this side of the revelations of eternity, to pronounce who is, and who is not, called effectually by God in his providence, and by Christ in his Gospel. We look upon certain companies of believers, and we call them Christians, substantively, bodily. They may be in errors of doctrine, as were the disciples at Rome, or in errors of conduct, as were the disciples at Corinth; but neither the errors of doctrine in the one, nor the vices of the other, prevented the inspired preacher of Christianity from calling them disciples, Christians, "beloved of God called to be saints." There is a lancet criticism which cuts up everything by the roots, and suffers nothing to wear its natural grace and simplicity in the field where it enters. The writers of the Holy Scriptures used free popular language, bold figures of rhetoric, quotations, allusions, as authors have done in every age; and unless we interpret their words accordingly, if we wring every phrase to see how much meaning we can extort from it, if we cut to use the commonplace of critics - their language to the quick, we turn the revelation into a mystery and the Bible into a hidden book. The methods of Biblical criticism are often spoken of slightingly, but they are as essential in their place as the arts of computing numbers, for we never can

force the rhetorical, any more than the numerical figures, to yield the right result without the right rules.

66

7. To all that be in Rome. He does not say Romans, but all, foreigners and natives, Jews as well as Gentiles. That searching critic upon the Common Version, Symonds, would properly substitute are for the obsolete indicative be. - Beloved of God, called to be saints. See the remarks on the preceding verse. Terms similar to these were applied to the relation between God and the Israelites. See Ex. xix. 6; Deut. xxxii. 19; xxxiii. 3; where they are called “ a kingdom of priests," "a holy nation," "his sons and daughters," his saints," and "the people" whom he "loved." The Epistles abound with such phrases relative to the Christian Church. Rom. viii. 33; Eph. i. 4; Phil. ii. 15; Col. iii. 12; 2 Thess. ii. 13; 2 Tim. ii. 10; Tit. i. 1; 1 Pet. ii. 9; 1 John iii. 1, 2. As to the term saints, Archbishop Newcome says, "All Christians were thus called, because they were dedicated to God, 1 Cor. vii. 14, and because they professed a religion which tended to make them holy." 1 Cor. vi. 11. See also Acts xxvi. 10; Rom. xii. 13; 1 Cor. vi. 1; Eph. iii. 8. But, he adds, "those who were thus denominated might fall from personal holiness." While, on the other hand, the very benediction of the Apostle is a wish that they might have more and more sanctity and spirituality, thus precluding the notion that they had " already attained, or were already perfect," or even out of all manner of spiritual danger. — Grace to you, and peace. A wish that all the blessings of the Gospel, its happiest influences, might be shed over their hearts and lives. The apostolic benediction has various forms, as it occurs in different Epistles, but