The apostle now carefully refutes the notion that the doctrine of justification by faith encourages Antinomianism. Liberty does not mean licence. St. Paul was quite alive to the fact that skilful opponents and brainless admirers would misrepresent his doctrine, which was also Christ's. He therefore takes great pains to show that the connection between the righteousness of Christ and the righteousness of a Christian is not arbitrary or fictitious. His argument throughout implies that man actually receives "the righteousness of God," that is, the righteousness which is inherent in God, and is bestowed by God upon man when he unites himself with Christ (vi.-viii.).
Shall I go on sinning that God's mercy may be all the greater in forgiving me? God forbid: for when I went down into the waters of baptism, I shared in the death of Christ; and when I rose from them, I rose as a sharer in His risen life. Because I am united thus to the life of Christ, sin is foreign to my nature (vi. 1-14). I am no longer under law, but under grace: but {165} to be the slave of sin and be occupied with uncleanness, and to gain the wages of death, is inconsistent with being the slave of righteousness, occupied in a course of purification and rewarded with the gift of life (vi. 15-23).
Next, St. Paul asks why it is that we are no longer under the Law? Because we have no connection with that state of sin to which the Law was applicable. Our soul is like a wife whose lawful husband is dead. Or, to put the truth into another form, our old state was killed by our identification with Christ crucified, and we are espoused to Christ risen (vii. 1-6). What, then, shall we think of the Law? Is it sin? No. It reveals the sinfulness of sin, and it irritates dormant sin into activity. A thing cannot be identical with another thing which it exposes and irritates. But why did God permit the Law, which is holy, to prove fatal to my soul (vii. 13)? He did not. The Law was not fatal, though sin was all but fatal. Sin was permitted to do its worst that its real hideousness might be apparent. This is what took place. The Law gave me an ideal, but my better self, which corresponds to the Law, could not keep me from ding wrong or make me do right. I became involved in a terrible conflict. This was the opportunity of Christ. He has delivered me from that state of the body which involved me in sin and death. Without Him, I should still be serving the Law of God with my conscience, and the law of sin with my body (vii. 25).
Where the Law of Moses failed, Christ splendidly succeeds. He not only sets before men an ideal, but also helps them to attain it, and fulfil the righteous claims of the moral Law, by uniting Himself with them by the Spirit (viii. 1-10). Men are now in a new relation to God: they call Him Father, He sees in them His sons. Though with all creation we wait still in fruitful pain for the fulness of redemption, we wait with confident hope. The Spirit is with us to help and to pray, we remember God's high purpose for us, we have known His love in the past, Jesus in infinite exaltation is interceding for us; {166} who, then, shall ever be able to separate us from the love of God (viii. 11-39)?
St. Paul turns now to a parenthetical discussion which necessarily suggests itself here. It has practically happened that God's own people, the children of Abraham, in spite of their privileges, are excluded from this new salvation which comes from acceptance of Christ. This does not mean that God has been unfaithful. St. Paul vindicates His action toward them, and he shows that it has been consistent with His previous action towards the Israelites (ix. 6-13), righteous (ix. 14-21), and merciful (ix. 22-29). God has always shown that He is free to select whom he likes to carry out His purpose in the world.[1] The Jews are rejected because they seek to be justified, on the strength of their own works (ix. 30-33; x. 1-3): now, the method of the Law has been superseded by Christ's, which is an easier method (x. 4-10) and universal (x. 11-13). And the Jews have had every opportunity for hearing of it (x. 14-21). But God has not rejected them entirely or finally (xi. 1-10); and if their fall has led to the preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles, how much more happily fruitful will be their reception into the Church (xi. 11-15)! We may hope for this ultimate acceptance of the gospel by both Jew and Gentile because of the original holiness of the Jewish stock. The Gentiles are grafted into that: just as we may be cut off from it if we sin, so the Jews more easily may be grafted in again if they will (xi. 16-24). St. Paul now shows how the hardening of the Jews and the disobedience of the Gentiles alike have served the purposes of God. Israel as a nation shall be saved by the Messiah. The chapter closes {167} with words of reverent admiration for the wonderful workings of the Divine Providence (xi. 25-36).
After this long doctrinal argument, St. Paul insists upon certain practical duties (xii.-xv. 13). We may notice in xiii. 2 ff. the emphasis which is laid upon the dignity of the civil government, a dignity which was immeasurably degraded ten years later by the wanton persecution of the Roman Christians. And xiii. 13 is a verse ever to be remembered by the Church as the verse by which God brought Augustine from free thinking and licentious living to be numbered among the saints. In xiv. begins some considerate advice about certain Christians "weak in faith." They seem to have formed a party, but not a party which can be identified with any other religious clique mentioned by the apostle. Their vegetarianism and their observance of particular holy days have suggested the theory that they were Christians who followed the ascetic practices of the Jewish sect of Essenes. The theory that they were Gentiles who affected the customs of the Pythagoreans has commended itself to other writers. On the whole, the number of Jews in Rome supports the theory that these were Jewish Christians. St. Paul deals very tenderly with these total abstainers from meat and wine. He evidently does not put them on the same level as the sectaries of Galatia or Colossae.
The Epistle closes with various references to personal matters, including the expression of a desire to visit Spain and Rome (xv. 34).
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ANALYSIS
Salutation and introduction (i. 1-15).