Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Romans 1:2

Romans 1:2. Which he promised beforehand. The parenthesis is unnecessary, for the whole passage is closely connected. It must be God's gospel, for He had already promised it, and this thought would have force with the Gentile Christians as well as the Jews. Moreover it serves to emphasize the sacredness of the gift intrusted to him as separated unto the gospel of God.

Through his prophets. In the New Testament the revelation is always said to be made ‘by' God, ‘through the prophets.' The ‘prophets' are not here distinguished from the other Old Testament writers.

In the holy Scriptures. The article is wanting in the original, but this can scarcely alter the accepted sense. The Greek-speaking Jews probably used the phrase as a proper noun, as in the case of the word ‘law.' The omission of the article, in such usage, does not imply any indefinite or general meaning. ‘The divine promises of the gospel, given through the prophets of God, are found in such books as, being God's records for His revelations, are holy writing'(Meyer). The reader would understand that the whole Old Testament was meant. In fact, the entire revelation is one organic system of types and prophecies pointing to Christ; John 5:39. The gospel, Paul implies, though new, is yet old.

Continues after advertising