02.02. I. The Salutation (1-7).
I. The Salutation (Rom 1:1-7).
1. Paul, Jesus Christ’s slave (1). This is the true meaning of the opening phrase. The word translated servant in the common versions is literally bondman, that is slave. Thus this man at once identifies himself: he is the Lord’s slave; he has taken His yoke upon him, and is His willing bondservant. He has known the bondage of sin, but this is a bondage of love. The yoke he now wears is easy, and the burden is light (Mat 11:28-29).
2. A called apostle (1). Not merely called an apostle, and much less called to be an apostle. Many of the commentators, and even the translators, break down here. Most of them have called to be, and the Twentieth Century New Testament goes so far as to render it called to become an apostle. Alford points out that in Paul’s case, his call to the apostleship was a very special one. He was called, and that to the very highest office, of an apostle; and even more—among the apostles, not one by original selection, but one specially called. And on this point Bengel says: The rest of the apostles were educated by long intercourse with Jesus, and were called first to follow Him, and obey Him, then put forth as apostles. Paul, beforetime a persecutor, was suddenly made an apostle by special calling. In like manner, the Jews were God’s people by promise; the Greeks, by simple calling. Thus the called apostle had a similitude and relation to the called saints (Rom 1:7).
Paul, then, was an apostle by call, even the call of the risen Christ. It becomes us, therefore, to heed well the message he brings us. He speaks, not as a mere messenger, but as an apostle—a legate, as Murdock puts it. The word apostle means a sent one, but in its New Testament sense it stands for one who is sent clothed with full authority to speak and act for the divine Sender.
3. Separated unto the gospel of God (Rom 1:1). Paul had no difficulty in classifying himself; he knew where he belonged, and to Whom. He was the Lord’s slave, and his particular business was in connection with the gospel of God—God’s good news. He was a chosen vessel, dedicated to a certain particular use (Acts 9:15). His work was marked out for him even from his birth (Gal 1:15), though it took a long time for him to discover that fact. The theme of Romans, says Dr. Scofield (Reference Bible), is the ‘gospel of God’ (Rom 1:1), the very widest possible designation of the whole body of redemption truth, for it is He with Whom is ‘no respect of persons;’ and Who is not ‘the God of the Jews only,’ but ‘of the Gentiles also’ (Rom 2:11; Rom 3:29). Accordingly, ‘all the world’ is found guilty (Rom 3:19), and a redemption is revealed as wide as the need, upon the alone condition of faith. Not only does Romans embody in the fullest way the doctrines of grace in relation to salvation, but in three remarkable chapters (Rom 9:1-33, Rom 10:1-21, Rom 11:1-36) the great promises to Israel are reconciled with the promises concerning the Gentiles, and the fulfilment of the former shown to await the completion of the church and coming of the Deliverer out of Zion (Rom 11:25-27). The key-phrase is ‘the righteousness of God’ (Rom 1:17; Rom 3:21-22).
4. Which He had promised afore by His prophets in the Holy Scriptures (Rom 1:2). In the Greek there is no article preceding Holy Scriptures, though the Old Testament is clearly indicated by the mention of God’s prophets, and the insertion of the article is therefore perhaps warranted. The point in the statement is that the gospel was revealed in fulfilment of promises which God had made (compare 1Pe 1:11).
5. Concerning His Son (Rom 1:3). The person of Christ is the very substance of the gospel of God. According to the flesh He is, as the prophets predicted, a descendant of David. According to the Spirit of Holiness, He was shown to be the Son of God with power by resurrection: not His own resurrection merely, but that of others also, such as were dead (1911 Bible, margin). Mr. Darby says (Synopsis): The subject of this gospel is, first of all, the Son of God. He has accomplished a work; but it is Himself Who is the true subject of the gospel. Now He is presented in a two-fold aspect: 1st, the object of the promises, Son (of David according to the flesh; 2d, the Son of God in power, Who, in the midst of sin, walked by the Spirit in divine and absolute holiness (resurrection being the illustrious and victorious proof of Who He was, walking in this character). That is to say, resurrection is a public manifestation of that power by which He walked in absolute holiness during His life—a manifestation that He is the Son of God in power. He is clearly shown forth as Son of God in power by this means. Here it was no question of promise, but of power, of Him Who could enter into conflict with the death in which man lay, and overcome it completely; and that, in connection with the holiness which bore testimony during his life to the power of that Spirit by which He walked, and in which He guarded Himself from being touched by sin. It was in the same power by which He was holy in life absolutely that He was raised from the dead.
“In the ways of God on the earth He was the object and the fulfilment of the promises. With regard to the condition of man under sin and death, He was completely Conqueror of all that stood in His way, whether living or in resurrection. It was the Son of God Who was there, made known by resurrection according to the power that was in Him, a power that displayed itself according to the Spirit by the holiness in which He lived.
“What marvelous grace to see the whole power of evil—that dreadful door of death which closed upon the sinful life of man, leaving him to the inevitable judgment that he deserved—broken, destroyed, by Him, Who was willing to enter into the gloomy chamber which shut in, and take upon Himself all the weakness of man in death, and thus completely and absolutely delivered him whose penalty He had borne in submitting to death! This victory over death, this deliverance of man from its dominion, by the power of the Son of God become man, when He had undergone it, and that as a sacrifice for sin, is the only ground of hope for mortal and sinful man. It sets aside all that sin and death have to say. It destroys, for him who has a portion in Christ, the seal of judgment upon sin, which is in death; and a new man, a new life, begins for him who has been held under it outside the whole scene. The whole effect of his former misery—a life founded on the value of that which the Son of God had there accomplished.
“In fine, we have, as the subject of the gospel, the Son of God, made of the seed of David after the flesh; and, in the bosom of humanity in death, declared to be the Son of God by resurrection Jesus Christ our Lord.
6. Jesus Christ our Lord, through Whom we receive grace and apostleship (Rom 1:4-5, R. V.). Mr. Darby continues: The gospel was the gospel of God Himself; but it is by Jesus Christ the Lord that the apostle received his mission. He was the head of the work, and sent forth the labourers into the harvest which they were to reap in the world. The object of his mission, and its extent, was the obedience of faith (not obedience to the law) among all nations, establishing the authority and the value of the name of Christ. It was this name which should prevail and be acknowledged.
“The gospel according to Paul, says Dr. Stifler, is universal. It is not Jewish, but worldwide, a gospel for the Gentiles, for by resurrection Jesus transcended all Jewish connection and became the world’s Saviour, a Saviour not by the obedience to law which was Mosaic, but by the power of an endless life. Life is universal. Thus Paul, by linking his apostolate with the raised Christ, gives first the character of his epistle, and secondly its scope. It is the epistle of divine life in Christ for all nations, on the condition of faith.
7. Among whom are ye also (Rom 1:6-7). The children of God are here defined as:
(1) The called of Jesus Christ (Rom 1:6). Not, as in R. V., called to be Jesus Christ’s: they were already His—His called ones, His bidden ones. Also, they are:
(2) Beloved of God (Rom 1:7). Surely they are that. As Jude puts it, all who have come to God by Jesus Christ are called, beloved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ (Jude 1:1, R. V.). But, further, they are,
(3) Called saints (Rom 1:7). Here again we have the question raised in Rom 1:1. Christians —God’s children by the new birth—are saints. They are not called to become saints; they became saints, instantaneously, at their new birth. This fact is set forth everywhere in the New Testament; and yet there is much confusion among the translators. Weymouth, for example, after rendering the phrase in Rom 1:7, called to be saints, without intimating that he has supplied the words to be (which are certainly not in the original), says in a footnote,
Herein consists the supreme glory and supreme difficulty of the Christian life—that we are not simply to speak of Christ to others, and, if need be, do and dare great things for Him. By the power of His own most holy Spirit within us we are to be saints.
Undoubtedly we are called upon to live as becometh saints (Rom 16:2), but it is highly important to see that if we have received the gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord we are already saints—God’s holy ones, set apart for Him, belonging to Him, saints by His own designation, His own calling—called saints. As Mr. Darby observes, ‘called to be saints’ is not the meaning of the passage. He translates, with Young and many others, called saints, and defines the phrase as meaning saints by calling.
8. Grace to you and peace (Rom 1:7). This is ever the message for the saints, from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.