Written to the Romans from Corinthus, &c.] That this epistle was written from Corinth is almost universally believed. That Phoebe was a deaconess of the Church at Cenchrea, we have seen in the first verse of this chapter; and that the epistle might have been sent by her to Rome is possible; but that she should have been the writer of the epistle, as this subscription states, egrafh dia foibhv, is false, for chap. xvi. 22 shows that Tertius was the writer, though by inserting the words and sent, we represent her rather as the carrier than the writer. This subscription, however, stands on very questionable grounds. It is wanting in almost all the ancient MSS.; and even of those which are more modern, few have it entirely, as in our common editions. It has already been noted that the subscriptions to the sacred books are of little or no authority, all having been added in latter times, and frequently by injudicious hands. The most ancient have simply To the Romans, or the Epistle to the Romans is finished. The word Amen was seldom added by the inspired writers, and here it is wanting in almost all the ancient MSS. As this was a word in frequent use in religious services, pious people would naturally employ it in finishing the reading or copying of this epistle, as they would thereby express their conviction of the truth of its contents, and their desire that the promises contained in it might be fulfilled to them and to the Church at large; and in this sense the word is not only harmless but useful. May the fullness of the Gentiles be brought in, and may all Israel be saved! This is treated of at large in this epistle; and to this prayer let every pious reader say AMEN! Often this word seems to be used as we use the word finis, i.e. the end. See the observations on this word at the end of the Gospel of John.

BEFORE I conclude this work, I shall beg leave to add several important observations, chiefly extracted from Dr. Taylor.

1. Paul, the apostle, writes to all the Christians at Rome, without distinction, as being called of Jesus Christ, beloved of God, called saints; as justified by faith and having peace with God; as standing in the grace of the Gospel, chap. v. 1, 2; as alive from the dead, chap. vi. 13, &c. He gives them various exhortations: Walk in newness of life. Let not sin reign in your mortal body. Yield yourselves unto God. chap. xii. 1, &c.: I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. chap. xiv. 10, 12: We shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. Every one of us shall give account of himself to God. chap. xiii. 11-14: It is high time to awake out of sleep; let us therefore cast off the works of darkness; let us not walk in rioting and drunkenness, in chambering and wantonness, in strife and envying; make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof. chap. viii. 13: For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; mellete apoqnhskein, ye shall hereafter die, meaning, in the world to come. But if ye, through the Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.

2. The rites and ceremonies of the law of Moses were incorporated into the civil state of the Jews, and so might be considered as national and political usages. Now, as the Gospel did not interfere with or subvert any national polity upon earth, but left all men in all the several countries of the globe to live, in all things not sinful, according to the civil constitution under which it found them; so it left the Jews also at liberty to observe all the rites and injunctions of the law of Moses, considered as a part of the civil and political usages of the nation. And in this respect they remained in force so long as the Jews were a nation, having the temple, the token of God's presence and evidence among them. But when the temple was destroyed, and they were expelled from the land of Canaan, their polity was dissolved, and the Mosaic rites were quite laid aside. And as the time in which this happened was near when the epistle to the Hebrews was written, therefore the apostle saith: The first covenant, or Mosaical dispensation, was then decaying and waxing old, and ready to vanish away, Heb. viii. 13.

3. But though the Gospel was not in itself intended to unchurch the Jews, yet the Jews every where warmly opposed the preaching of it, though not for the same reasons. Some Jews opposed it totally, and rejected the whole Gospel as unnecessary, judging the Mosaical constitution, and their conformity to the law there delivered, completely sufficient for justification or salvation, without any farther provision made by the grace of God. These accounted Christ our Lord an impostor, and the Gospel a forgery; and therefore persecuted the apostles with the utmost assiduity and outrage, as deceivers who had no Divine mission. Such were the Jews who put Stephen to death, Acts 6, and 7. Such were they at Antioch, in Pisidia, who were filled with envy, and spake against the things that were spoken by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming, Acts xiii. 45, 50. Such were the Jews at Iconium, Acts xiv. 2, 19; at Thessalonica, Acts xvii. 5; at Corinth, Acts xviii. 5, 6, and in other places. And such a Jew was Paul himself before his conversion. He consented to the death of Stephen, made havoc of the Church, (Acts viii. 3,) and breathed out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, Acts ix. 1; xxii. 4; xxvi. 9-11.

4. What Paul's principles, and those of the unbelieving Jews, were, we may learn if we observe that the first persecution raised against the apostles at Jerusalem was partly on account of their preaching through Jesus the resurrection from the dead, Acts iv. 1, 2. This gave great offense to the Sadducees; and partly because they openly affirmed that Jesus, whom the rulers of the Jews slew and hanged on a tree, was the Messiah, whom God had exalted to be a prince and a saviour. This disgusted all the council and senate of the Jews, Acts v. 21, 28-31. But with regard to these two particulars, the indignation of the Jews seems for some time abated, till the doctrine the apostles taught was better understood; and Stephen, in his dispute with some learned Jews, had suggested that the Gospel was intended to abrogate the Mosaical constitution, Acts vi. 9-15. This irritated the Jews afresh, especially the Pharisees, the strictest and most numerous sect among them. And Saul, one of that sect, (Acts xxvi. 5; xxiii. 6,) being then a young man, just come out of Gamaliel's school, having finished his studies in the law, and being fully persuaded that the Jewish dispensation was instituted by God, never to be altered, but to abide for ever, he really believed that Jesus and his followers were deceivers, and that it was his duty to oppose them, and to stand up courageously for God and his truth.

Thus he honestly followed the dictates of his own conscience. How far other unbelieving Jews were or were not upright in their opposition to the Gospel, God only knows; but their professed principles seem to be nearly the same. In short, they were for seizing on the inheritance, (Matt. xxi. 38,) and for engrossing all salvation and the favour of God to themselves.

The Jews they judged were the only people of God, and the Jewish nation the only true Church, out of which there was no salvation. No man could be in a state of acceptance with God without observing the law of Moses.

The works of the law, moral and ceremonial, must be performed in order to his being a member of God's Church and family, and having a right to future and eternal happiness. They expected the Messiah indeed and his kingdom; but not as if either had a reference to another world. The law, and a punctual observance of it, were the ground of their expectations in a future world. And as for the Messiah, they supposed his coming and kingdom related only to the temporal prosperity and grandeur of the Jewish nation, and the perpetual establishment of their law, by rescuing them out of the hands of the Gentile powers, who had greatly embarrassed and distressed their constitution. Thus they endeavoured to establish their own righteousness, (chap. x. 3,) salvation, or interest in God; an interest which they imagined for themselves, and which excluded men of all other nations, who they thought were in fact utterly excluded from the Divine favour and eternal life, as quite lost and hopeless. Against us Gentiles, they had the strongest prejudices, accounting us as perfectly vile, as nothing, as abandoned of God, only because we were not included in their peculiarity; while they imagined themselves to be vastly superior to us, and the only people beloved of God, purely on account of their external privileges and relation to God as the seed of Abraham; being circumcised, enjoying the law, the promises, and ordinances of worship, &c.

5. And this was another ground of their opposition to the Gospel when it was preached to the Gentiles. Indeed the apostles themselves, and the first Christians among the Jews, had for some time no notion of the Gospel's being preached to the Gentiles, till God in a vision convinced Pet. it was his will that it should, Acts x. 9-45. But the unbelieving Jews regarded the preaching of the Gospel to the Gentiles, or the declaring that they were, upon their faith in Christ, pardoned and admitted into the Church of God, and to the hopes of eternal life, almost in the same manner as we should regard the preaching of the Gospel to brute creatures. They could not bear the thought that the Gentiles-any barbarous nations, should, only by faith, have an equal interest in God and the blessings of his covenant with themselves. They did not indeed deny the possibility of their being taken into the Church, and of obtaining salvation. But it must be only by their becoming Jews; they must first submit to the law, and yield obedience to its precepts and obligations, before they could be qualified objects of God's mercy. There was no grace, no part in the kingdom of God either here or hereafter, for a Gentile, unless he first became a Jew, and performed the works of the Mosaical law. By these sentiments they were led to do all they could to oppose the preaching of the Gospel to the Gentiles, and became very bitter enemies to Paul, who was the apostle particularly selected and commissioned for that purpose. They could not allow the Gentiles to have any access to the privileges of God's Church and people, but through the door of the law; and to introduce them any other way was, not only to overthrow their law and peculiarity, but to deceive the Gentiles. Therefore they did all in their power to withstand the apostle, and to persuade the Gentiles every where that he was an odious impostor; that his Gospel was a forgery, destitute of Divine authority; that he proposed admitting them into the Church and covenant of God in a way which had no foundation in the declared will of God. Their law was the only Divine establishment, and obedience to it the only means to introduce them into the kingdom of God; and Paul could have no commission from heaven to teach otherwise, whatever he might pretend, or what miracles soever he might work. Of this sort of Jews the apostle speaks, 1 Thess. ii. 14-16.

Other Jews there were who believed the Gospel, and agreed that it ought to be preached to the Gentiles; but so that the Gentiles, at the same time they accepted the Gospel, were obliged to submit to the law of Moses in every part, otherwise they could not be saved or have any interest in the kingdom and covenant of God, Acts xv. 1. These taught that the Gospel was insufficient without the law. They differed from the forementioned Jews in that they embraced the faith of Jesus Christ; but agreed with them in this, that the law of Moses was to be in force for ever, and the observance of all its rituals absolutely necessary to a standing in the Church of God, and the hopes of eternal life. And for this reason they were upon pretty good terms with the unbelieving Jews, and avoided the persecution to which those who adhered to the pure and unmixed Gospel were exposed, Gal. vi. 12. These Jews, who were for joining law and Gospel together, were also great enemies to our apostle. He speaks of them, Philippians iii. 2, 3, &c.

6. Now against the mistakes of the infidel Jews the apostle thus argues in the epistle to the Romans: Jews, as well as Gentiles, have corrupted themselves, and are become obnoxious to the Divine wrath, and, if they repent not, will certainly fall under the wrath of God in the last day: consequently, as both are obnoxious to wrath, both must be indebted to grace and mercy for any favour shown them. The continuance of the Jews in the Church, as well as the admittance of the Gentiles into it, is wholly of grace; mere grace or favour. Upon which footing, the Gentiles must have as good a right to the blessings of God's covenant as the Jews themselves.

John Gill's Bible Commentary

Greek Textus Receptus