St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, Vol. I A Practical Exposition

Charles Gore

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pubOne.info thank you for your continued support and wish to present you this new edition. A good excuse is needed for adding to the large number of excellent commentaries on the Epistle to the Romans which already exist. But I think there is such an excuse. These commentaries are not of the sort which readers who are educated but not scholarly find it easy to master; so that in fact this epistle is at the present day very much misunderstood or ignored by such people. And again, partly owing to its interpretation at the period of the Reformation and by some Evangelicals of later date, it is still practically to a great extent viewed with discomfort and neglected by those who most value the name of Catholic. My excuse, then, for adding to the expositions of the Romans lies in these facts. One who is necessarily immersed in the practical work of the Christian ministry, and is yet struggling to keep himself in some sense in line with biblical scholarship, if his life involves special disadvantages, may yet hope to be useful in interpreting to ordinary Christians {vi} the results of the scholars. And I am persuaded that it requires one who enters thoroughly into the spirit of churchmanship, or the obligation of the one body, to interpret with any completeness the mind of St

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• Publié par: Pub One Info
• Date de parution: 27 septembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9782819925903
• Langue: English

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St. Paul's
Epistle to the Romans
A Practical Exposition
BY THE
RIGHT REV. CHARLES GORE, D.D.
LORD BISHOP OF WORCESTER
VOL. I
(CHAPTERS I-VIII)
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1902
FIRST EDITION . February , 1899.
Reprinted . . . . . March , 1900.
Reprinted . . . September , 1900.
Reprinted . . . . October , 1902.
OXFORD
HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
{v}
PREFACE
A good excuse is needed for adding to the largenumber of excellent commentaries on the Epistle to the Romans whichalready exist. But I think there is such an excuse. Thesecommentaries are not of the sort which readers who are educated butnot scholarly find it easy to master; so that in fact this epistleis at the present day very much misunderstood or ignored by suchpeople. And again, partly owing to its interpretation at the periodof the Reformation and by some Evangelicals of later date, it isstill practically to a great extent viewed with discomfort andneglected by those who most value the name of Catholic. My excuse,then, for adding to the expositions of the Romans lies in thesefacts. One who is necessarily immersed in the practical work of theChristian ministry, and is yet struggling to keep himself in somesense in line with biblical scholarship, if his life involvesspecial disadvantages, may yet hope to be useful in interpreting toordinary Christians {vi} the results of the scholars. And I ampersuaded that it requires one who enters thoroughly into thespirit of churchmanship, or the obligation of the one body, tointerpret with any completeness the mind of St. Paul.
This volume has practically no more connexion withlectures delivered in Westminster Abbey last Lent, than is impliedin its being an exposition of the same epistle by the sameperson.
The method of exposition in this volume is the sameas that pursued in its predecessor on the Epistle to the Ephesians.After a general introduction, each section of the Revised Versionis taken, or in some cases two sections are taken together, andprefaced by an analysis or paraphrase, as seems most useful, andfollowed by further explanation of the main ideas or phrases whicheach section contains.
The 'appended notes' I have been obliged to defer tothe end of the second volume— which, I hope, will appear within ayear— with a view of approximately equalizing the size of the twovolumes.
CHARLES GORE.
WESTMINSTER ABBEY,
Conversion of St. Paul , 1899.
{vii}
THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS
Introduction.
i.
St. Paul's great Epistle to the Romans was written,as may be quite confidently asserted, from Corinth, during thesecond visit to Greece recorded in the Acts [1] , i.e. in the beginning of the year commonly reckoned 58, but perhapsmore correctly 56 A. D. — the year following the writing of theEpistles to the Corinthians. The reasons for this confidentstatement, and indeed for all that needs to be said about thecircumstances under which St. Paul wrote and the conditions ofChristianity at Rome, become apparent chiefly in connexion with thelater parts of the epistle which are not included in this volume.They {2} shall therefore be omitted here, and we will contentourselves for the moment with a very brief statement of the resultsin which scholars are now finding, as it would seem, finalagreement.
The existence of Christians at Rome was due not toany apostolic founding, for no apostle appears yet to have visitedRome, but to the sort of 'quiet and fortuitousfiltration [2] ' of Christians from various parts ofthe empire to its great centre which must naturally have takenplace; for from all quarters there was a tendency to Rome. 'Somefrom Palestine, some from Corinth, some from Ephesus and otherparts of Proconsular Asia, possibly some from Tarsus, and more fromthe Syrian Antioch, there was in the first instance, as we maybelieve, nothing concerted in their going; but when once theyarrived in the metropolis, the freemasonry common among Christianswould soon make them known to each other, and they would form, notexactly an organized Church'— that may well have been the result ofthe later presence of St. Paul and St. Peter— 'but such afortuitous assemblage of Christians as was {3} only waiting for theadvent of an apostle to constitute one [3] . ' Amongthis assemblage of Christians it appears evident from St. Paul'slanguage [4] that there must have been Jews as wellas Gentiles; but the dominant character of the church wasGentile [5] . It is perhaps only putting this inanother way to say that there would have been among the RomanChristians elements of hostility to St. Paul and his teaching, butChristianity as St. Paul taught it would have been in theascendant. And probably St. Paul's special informants about affairsthere would have been his special friends, Prisca andAquila [6] .
The character of the epistle written to theseChristians of the capital is marked. It has beyond any other of St.Paul's epistles the character of an ordered theological treatise.Of course it assumes the existence of accepted Christianprinciples— the rudimentary instruction or Christian 'tradition'—in the minds of those to whom it was addressed [7] .But it takes certain of these principles of the Christian {4}religion and develops them systematically and argumentatively;though again, it must be explained, the argument is very far frombeing barely logical, but is full of the deepest feeling, showingitself in passages of memorable eloquence which live in the heartsof all of us.
Why this particular epistle should have thischaracter of a systematic treatise is not hard to see. St. Paul wasreaching the end of his great controversy for the catholicity ofthe Gospel, against the Judaizers— that is, for the equal positionof Gentiles and Jews in the Church, and against the obligation uponthe Gentiles of circumcision and the ceremonial law. Thatcontroversy was the occasion of the apostolic conference atJerusalem, which is described both by St. Luke in theActs [8] and, from the point of view of St. Paul'sown 'apology, ' in the Epistle to the Galatians [9] .It is felt at its whitest heat in that intensely concentrated andpassionate epistle. But by the time that the Epistle to the Romanscame to be written the controversy was quieting down. The victoryof Catholicism over Judaism was as good as won. The great principleof justification by faith, not by works of the law, had developeditself lucidly {5} and clearly in St. Paul's mind, and flowed outin our epistle in an ordered sequence of thought, rich, profound,and mature.
And there were special reasons why it should havebeen expressed in writing at this moment, and to the RomanChristians. Though the heat of the conflict inside the Church wasover, the fierce hostility of many of the Jews, both within andwithout the Church, to St. Paul personally was by no means past.Now St. Paul was on his way up to Jerusalem with the moneycollected in the Gentile churches for the poor brethren there. Heattached great importance to this expression of Gentile goodwill,and almost more importance to its acceptance at his hands by theJerusalem Christians [10] . It was to be a link ofmutual, practical love to bind the divergent elements in the Churchtogether. But he felt, and as experience showed rightly, that hisenterprise would be attended with great peril to his life. Thisepistle therefore, like his speech at Miletus, has something of thecharacter of 'last words [11] . ' He is in writing itcommitting to the future the fruits of his labours, so far as theycan be expressed in a doctrine, at a moment when he feels thattheir continuance is being {6} seriously imperilled. And thissummary of his life's teaching in its most characteristic aspect ismost fitly addressed to the Christians of the great city which wasthe centre of the then world. St. Paul already conceived ofChristianity as, in prospect at least, the religion of the empire.It was vastly important, therefore, that the capital should know itand hold it in its full glory and richness. He himself, if heescaped safe through the visit to Jerusalem, was bent onimmediately going thither and securing this great end by hispersonal ministry [12] . But he could not depend onthe future. He must seize the golden moment— buying up theopportunity at least by a letter.
This, in very brief words, is an account of thecircumstances and conditions under which the Epistle to the Romanswas written, and it must suffice for the moment till some of thedetails are presented to us in its later chapters.
ii.
There are men of whom it is especially true thattheir teaching is the outcome of their own {7} personal experience.If a man's teaching is to have any real force this must be in ameasure true in any case. But in some men the personal experiencehas set an exceptionally strong impress upon the intellectualconvictions, and so upon the teaching. Such men— otherwise verydifferent from one another— are Augustine, Dante, Luther, Bunyan,Newman. Such an one was St. Paul. His intellectual theory is onfire with the emotions bred of a personal experience, both bitterand sweet, but always intense. And if there is professedly more ofautobiography in the Epistle to the Galatians, yet in fact we knowSt. Paul's interior life, both before and after his 'conversion, 'so far as we know it at all, mainly through the generalized accountof it in the Epistle to the Romans. For the doctrine ofjustification by faith, not by works of the law, developed in thisepistle, is the record of his personal experience reduced to ageneral principle. St. Paul had, on the lines of his Pharisaiceducation, in the first half of his life zealously sought to bejustified by works, and had found out his mistake.
What is the real meaning of this phrase? Ordinarilywe Englishmen find it natural to appropriate St. James' 'commonsense' language {8} about justification rather than St.Paul's [13] , and say that faith is surely of no moralvalue without works or good actions, and that we can be j