Romans 1:16

THE TREATISE. 1:16-15:13.

Third Passage (1:16, 17). The Statement of the Subject.

Ver. 16. “ For I am not ashamed of the gospel:for it is a power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. ”

The long delays which had prevented the apostle's visit to Rome did not arise, as might have been thought, from some secret anxiety or fear that he might not be able to sustain honorably the part of preacher of the word on this stage. In the very contents of the gospel there are a grandeur and a power which lift the man who is charged with it above feelings of this kind. He may indeed be filled with fear and trembling when he is delivering such a message; 1 Corinthians 2:3; but the very nature of the message restores him, and gives him entire boldness wherever he presents himself. In what follows the apostle seems to say: “And I now proceed to prove this to you by expounding in writing that gospel which I would have wished to proclaim with the living voice in the midst of you.” When he says: I am not ashamed, Paul does not seem to have in view the opprobrium attached to the preaching of the Crucified One; he would have brought out this particular more distinctly. Comp. 1 Corinthians 1:18; 1 Corinthians 1:23. The complement τοῦ Χριστοῦ, of Christ, which is found in the T. R. along with the Byz. MSS., is certainly unauthentic; for it is wanting in the documents of the other two families, in the ancient Latin and Syriac Vss., and even in a larger number of Mnn. The word gospel denotes here, as in Romans 1:1; Romans 1:9, not the matter, but the act of preaching; Calvin himself says: De vocali praedicatione hic loquitur. And why is the apostle not ashamed of such a proclamation? Because it is the mighty arm of God rescuing the world from perdition, and bringing it salvation. Mankind are, as it were, at the bottom of an abyss; the preaching of the gospel is the power from above which raises out of it. No one need blush at being the instrument of such a force. The omission of the article before the word δύναμις, power, serves to bring out the character of the action rather than the action itself.

Hofmann says: “ Power, for the gospel can do something; power of God, for it can do all it promises.” The word σωτηρία, salvation, contains two ideas: on the one side, deliverance from an evil, perdition; on the other, communication of a blessing, eternal life in communion with God. The possession of these two privileges is man's health (σωτηρία, from the adjective σῶς, safe and sound). The life of God in the soul of man, such is the normal state of the latter. The preposition εἰς, to, or in (salvation), denotes not only the purpose of the divine work, but its immediate and certain result, wherever the human condition is fulfilled. This condition is faith, to every one that believeth. The word every one expresses the universal efficacy of the remedy, and the word believeth, its entire freeness. Such are the two fundamental characteristics of the Christian salvation, especially as preached by Paul; and they are so closely connected that, strictly speaking, they form only one. Salvation would not be for all, if it demanded from man anything else than faith. To make work or merit a condition in the least degree, would be to exclude certain individuals. Its universal destination thus rests on its entire freeness at the time when man is called to enter into it. The apostle adds to the word believing the article τῷ, the, which cannot be rendered in French by the tout (all); the word means each individual, provided he believes. As the offer is universal, so the act of faith by which man accepts is individual; comp. John 3:16. The faith of which the apostle speaks is nothing else than the simple acceptance of the salvation offered in preaching. It is premature to put in this moral act all that will afterwards flow from it when faith shall be in possession of its object. This is what is done by Reuss and Sabatier, when they define it respectively: “A personal, inward, mystical union between man and Christ the Savious” (Ep. paulin. II. p. 43); and: “the destruction of sin in us, the inward creation of the divine life” (L'ap. Paul, p. 265). This is to make the effect the cause. Faith, in Paul's sense, is something extremely simple, such that it does not in the least impair the freeness of salvation. God says: I give thee; the heart answers: I accept; such is faith. The act is thus a receptivity, but an active receptivity. It brings nothing, but it takes what God gives; as was admirably said by a poor Bechuana: “It is the hand of the heart.” In this act the entire human personality takes part: the understanding discerning the blessing offered in the divine promise, the will aspiring after it, and the confidence of the heart giving itself up to the promise, and so securing the promised blessing.

The preaching of free salvation is the act by which God lays hold of man, faith is the act by which man lets himself be laid hold of. Thus, instead of God's ancient people who were recruited by birth and Abrahamic descent, Paul sees a new people arising, formed of all the individuals who perform the personal act of faith, whatever the nation to which they belong. To give pointed expression to this last feature, he recalls the ancient distinction which had till then divided mankind into two rival religious societies, Jews and Gentiles, and declares this distinction abolished. He says: to the Jew first, and to the Greek. In this context the word Greek has a wider sense than in Romans 1:14; for there it was opposed to Barbarian. It therefore designated only a part of Gentile humanity. Here, where it is used in opposition to Jew, it includes the whole Gentile world. Greeks were indeed the élite of the Gentiles, and might be regarded as representing the Gentiles in general; comp. 1 Corinthians 1:22-24. This difference in the extension of the name Greeks arises from the fact that in Romans 1:14 the only matter in question was Paul's ministry, the domain of which was subdivided into civilized Gentiles (Greeks) and barbarian Gentiles; while here the matter in question is the gospel's sphere of action in general, a sphere to which the whole of mankind belong (Jews and Gentiles). The word πρῶτον, first, should not be interpreted, as some think, in the sense of principally. It would be false to say that salvation is intended for the Jews in preference to the Greeks. Paul has in view the right of priority in time which belonged to Israel as the result of its whole history. As to this right, God had recognized it by making Jesus to be born in the midst of this people; Jesus had respected it by confining Himself during His earthly life to gathering together the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and by commanding his apostles to begin the evangelization of the world with Jerusalem and Judea, Acts 1:8; Peter and the Twelve remained strictly faithful to it, as is proved by the first part of the Acts, Acts 2-12; and Paul himself had uniformly done homage to it by beginning the preaching of the gospel, in every Gentile city to which he came as an apostle, in the synagogue. And, indeed, this right of priority rested on the destination of Israel to become itself the apostle of the Gentiles in the midst of whom they lived.

It was for Jewish believers to convert the world. For this end they must needs be the first to be evangelized. The word πρῶτον (first) is wanting in the Vat. and the Boerner. Cod. (Greek and Latin). We know from Tertullian that it was wanting also in Marcion. The omission of the word in the latter is easily explained; he rejected it simply because it overturned his system. Its rejection in the two MSS. B and G is more difficult to explain. Volkmar holds that Paul might ascribe a priority to the Jews in relation to judgment, as he does Romans 2:9, but not in connection with salvation; the πρῶτον of Romans 2:10 he therefore holds to be an interpolation from Romans 2:9, and that of our Romans 1:16, a second interpolation from Romans 2:10. An ingenious combination, intended to make the apostle the relentless enemy of Judaism, agreeably to Baur's system, but belied by the missionary practice of Paul, which is perfectly in keeping with our first and with that of Romans 2:10. The omission must be due to the carelessness of the copyist, the simple form: to the Jew and to the Greek (without the word first), naturally suggesting itself. While paying homage to the historical right of the Jewish people, Paul did not, however, intend to restore particularism. By the τε καί, as well as, he forcibly maintains the radical religious equality already proclaimed in the words: to every one that believeth.

It concerns the apostle now to explain how the gospel can really be the salvation of the world offered to all believers. Such is the object of Romans 1:17. The gospel is salvation, because it offers the righteousness of God.