{"commentary":{"id":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","website":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamieson-Fausset-Brown_Bible_Commentary","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","licenseNotes":null,"licenseNotice":null,"englishName":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","language":"eng","textDirection":"rtl","sha256":"db3d4c8b3c1f32ef9d1430a57392e02bda3a17aac1f9bbe398461de021a3cb13","availableFormats":["json"],"listOfBooksApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/books.json","listOfProfilesApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/profiles.json","numberOfBooks":66,"totalNumberOfChapters":1187,"totalNumberOfVerses":17056,"totalNumberOfProfiles":0,"languageName":"English","languageEnglishName":"English"},"book":{"id":"ROM","commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Romans","commonName":"Romans","introduction":"THE GENUINENESS of the Epistle to the Romans has never been questioned. It has the unbroken testimony of all antiquity, up to CLEMENT OF ROME, the apostle's \"fellow laborer in the Gospel, whose name was in the Book of Life\" (Phi 4:3), and who quotes from it in his undoubted Epistle to the Corinthians, written before the close of the first century. The most searching investigations of modern criticism have left it untouched.\n\nWHEN and WHERE this Epistle was written we have the means of determining with great precision, from the Epistle itself compared with the Acts of the Apostles. Up to the date of it the apostle had never been at Rome (Rom 1:11, Rom 1:13, Rom 1:15). He was then on the eve of visiting Jerusalem with a pecuniary contribution for its Christian poor from the churches of Macedonia and Achaia, after which his purpose was to pay a visit to Rome on his way to Spain (Rom 15:23-28). Now this contribution we know that he carried with him from Corinth, at the close of his third visit to that city, which lasted three months (Act 20:2-3; Act 24:17). On this occasion there accompanied him from Corinth certain persons whose names are given by the historian of the Acts (Act 20:4), and four of these are expressly mentioned in our Epistle as being with the apostle when he wrote it--Timotheus, Sosipater, Gaius, and Erastus (Rom 16:21, Rom 16:23). Of these four, the third, Gaius, was an inhabitant of Corinth (Co1 1:14), and the fourth, Erastus, was \"chamberlain of the city\" (Rom 16:23), which can hardly be supposed to be other than Corinth. Finally, Phœbebe, the bearer, as appears, of this Epistle, was a deaconess of the Church at Cenchrea, the eastern port of Corinth (Rom 16:1). Putting these facts together, it is impossible to resist the conviction, in which all critics agree, that Corinth was the place from which the Epistle was written, and that it was despatched about the close of the visit above mentioned, probably in the early spring of the year 58. The FOUNDER of this celebrated church is unknown. That it owed its origin to the apostle Peter, and that he was its first bishop, though an ancient tradition and taught in the Church of Rome as a fact not to be doubted, is refuted by the clearest evidence, and is given up even by candid Romanists. On that supposition, how are we to account for so important a circumstance being passed by in silence by the historian of the Acts, not only in the narrative of Peter's labors, but in that of Paul's approach to the metropolis, of the deputations of Roman \"brethren\" that came as far as Appii Forum and the Three Taverns to meet him, and of his two years' labors there (Act 28:15, Act 28:30)? And how, consistently with his declared principle--not to build on another man's foundation (Rom 15:20) --could he express his anxious desire to come to them that he might have some fruit among them also, even as among other Gentiles (Rom 1:13), if all the while he knew that they had the apostle of the circumcision for their spiritual father? And how, if so, is there no salutation to Peter among the many in this Epistle? or, if it may be thought that he was known to be elsewhere at that particular time, how does there occur in all the Epistles which our apostle afterwards wrote from Rome not one allusion to such an origin of the church at Rome? The same considerations would seem to prove that this church owed its origin to no prominent Christian laborer; and this brings us to the much-litigated question.\n\nFor WHAT CLASS of Christians was this Epistle principally designed--Jewish or Gentile? That a large number of Jews and Jewish proselytes resided at this time at Rome is known to all who are familiar with the classical and Jewish writers of that and the immediately subsequent periods; and that those of them who were at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost (Act 2:10), and formed probably part of the three thousand converts of that day, would on their return to Rome carry the glad tidings with them, there can be no doubt. Nor are indications wanting that some of those embraced in the salutations of this Epistle were Christians already of long standing, if not among the earliest converts to the Christian faith. Others of them who had made the apostle's acquaintance elsewhere, and who, if not indebted to him for their first knowledge of Christ, probably owed much to his ministrations, seemed to have charged themselves with the duty of cherishing and consolidating the work of the Lord in the capital. And thus it is not improbable that up to the time of the apostle's arrival the Christian community at Rome had been dependent upon subordinate agency for the increase of its numbers, aided by occasional visits of stated preachers from the provinces; and perhaps it may be gathered from the salutations of the last chapter that it was up to that time in a less organized, though far from less flourishing state, than some other churches to whom the apostle had already addressed Epistles. Certain it is, that the apostle writes to them expressly as a Gentile Church (Rom 1:13, Rom 1:15; Rom 15:15-16); and though it is plain that there were Jewish Christians among them, and the whole argument presupposes an intimate acquaintance on the part of his readers with the leading principles of the Old Testament, this will be sufficiently explained by supposing that the bulk of them, having before they knew the Lord been Gentile proselytes to the Jewish faith, had entered the pale of the Christian Church through the gate of the ancient economy.\n\nIt remains only to speak briefly of the PLAN and CHARACTER Of this Epistle. Of all the undoubted Epistles of our apostle, this is the most elaborate, and at the same time the most glowing. It has just as much in common with a theological treatise as is consistent with the freedom and warmth of a real letter. Referring to the headings which we have prefixed to its successive sections, as best exhibiting the progress of the argument and the connection of its points, we here merely note that its first great topic is what may be termed the legal relation of man to God as a violator of His holy law, whether as merely written on the heart, as in the case of the heathen, or, as in the case of the Chosen People, as further known by external revelation; that it next treats of that legal relation as wholly reversed through believing connection with the Lord Jesus Christ; and that its third and last great topic is the new life which accompanies this change of relation, embracing at once a blessedness and a consecration to God which, rudimentally complete already, will open, in the future world, into the bliss of immediate and stainless fellowship with God. The bearing of these wonderful truths upon the condition and destiny of the Chosen People, to which the apostle next comes, though it seem but the practical application of them to his kinsmen according to the flesh, is in some respects the deepest and most difficult part of the whole Epistle, carrying us directly to the eternal springs of Grace to the guilty in the sovereign love and inscrutable purposes of God; after which, however, we are brought back to the historical platform of the visible Church, in the calling of the Gentiles, the preservation of a faithful Israelitish remnant amidst the general unbelief and fall of the nation, and the ultimate recovery of all Israel to constitute, with the Gentiles in the latter day, one catholic Church of God upon earth. The remainder of the Epistle is devoted to sundry practical topics, winding up with salutations and outpourings of heart delightfully suggestive. \n\n\n\nNext: Romans Chapter 1\n\n","order":45,"numberOfChapters":16,"sha256":"b8a602d2ed3395e50b3ee5f84c6c9c736a6e21b7c0aabb38a28263eef72f3b6d","firstChapterNumber":1,"firstChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ROM/1.json","firstChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ROM","chapter":1},"lastChapterNumber":16,"lastChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ROM/16.json","lastChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ROM","chapter":16},"totalNumberOfVerses":385},"chapter":{"number":4,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":2,"content":["For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God--\"If works were the ground of Abraham's justification, he would have matter for boasting; but as it is perfectly certain that he hath none in the sight of God, it follows that Abraham could not have been justified by works.\" And to this agree the words of Scripture.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":3,"content":["For what saith the, Scripture? Abraham believed God, and it--his faith. \n\nwas counted to him for righteousness-- (Gen 15:6). Romish expositors and Arminian Protestants make this to mean that God accepted Abraham's act of believing as a substitute for complete obedience. But this is at variance with the whole spirit and letter of the apostle's teaching. Throughout this whole argument, faith is set in direct opposition to works, in the matter of justification--and even in Rom 4:4-5. The meaning, therefore, cannot possibly be that the mere act of believing--which is as much a work as any other piece of commanded duty (Joh 6:29; Jo1 3:23) --was counted to Abraham for all obedience. The meaning plainly is that Abraham believed in the promises which embraced Christ (Gen 12:3; Gen 15:5, &c.), as we believe in Christ Himself; and in both cases, faith is merely the instrument that puts us in possession of the blessing gratuitously bestowed.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":4,"content":["Now to him that worketh--as a servant for wages. \n\nis the reward not reckoned of grace--as a matter of favor. \n\nbut of debt--as a matter of right.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":5,"content":["But to him that worketh not--who, despairing of acceptance with God by \"working\" for it the work of obedience, does not attempt it. \n\nbut believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly--casts himself upon the mercy of Him that justifieth those who deserve only condemnation. \n\nhis faith, &c.--(See on Rom 4:3).\n\nSecond: David sings of the same justification.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["David also describeth--\"speaketh,\" \"pronounceth.\" \n\nthe blessedness of the man unto whom the Lord imputeth righteousness without works--whom, though void of all good works, He, nevertheless, regards and treats as righteous.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":7,"content":["Saying, Blessed, &c.-- (Psa 32:1-2). David here sings in express terms only of \"transgression forgiven, sin covered, iniquity not imputed\"; but as the negative blessing necessarily includes the positive, the passage is strictly in point.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":9,"content":["Cometh this blessedness then, &c.--that is, \"Say not, All this is spoken of the circumcised, and is therefore no evidence of God's general way of justifying men; for Abraham's justification took place long before he was circumcised, and so could have no dependence upon that rite: nay, 'the sign of circumcision' was given to Abraham as 'a seal' (or token) of the (justifying) righteousness which he had before he was circumcised; in order that he might stand forth to every age as the parent believer--the model man of justification by faith--after whose type, as the first public example of it, all were to be moulded, whether Jew or Gentile, who should thereafter believe to life everlasting.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":13,"content":["For the promise, &c.--This is merely an enlargement of the foregoing reasoning, applying to the law what had just been said of circumcision. \n\nthat he should be the heir of the world--or, that \"all the families of the earth should be blessed in him.\" \n\nwas not to Abraham or to his seed through the law--in virtue of obedience to the law. \n\nbut through the righteousness of faith--in virtue of his simple faith in the divine promises.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":14,"content":["For if they which are of the law be heirs--If the blessing is to be earned by obedience to the law. \n\nfaith is made void--the whole divine method is subverted.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":15,"content":["Because the law worketh wrath--has nothing to give to those who break is but condemnation and vengeance. \n\nfor where there is no law, there is no transgression--It is just the law that makes transgression, in the case of those who break it; nor can the one exist without the other.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":16,"content":["Therefore, &c.--A general summary: \"Thus justification is by faith, in order that its purely gracious character may be seen, and that all who follow in the steps of Abraham's faith--whether of his natural seed or no--may be assured of the like justification with the parent believer.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":17,"content":["As it is written, &c.-- (Gen 17:5). This is quoted to justify his calling Abraham the \"father of us all,\" and is to be viewed as a parenthesis. \n\nbefore--that is, \"in the reckoning of.\" \n\nhim whom he believed--that is, \"Thus Abraham, in the reckoning of Him whom he believed, is the father of us all, in order that all may be assured, that doing as he did, they shall be treated as he was.\" \n\neven God, quickeneth the dead--The nature and greatness of that faith of Abraham which we are to copy is here strikingly described. What he was required to believe being above nature, his faith had to fasten upon God's power to surmount physical incapacity, and call into being what did not then exist. But God having made the promise, Abraham believed Him in spite of those obstacles. This is still further illustrated in what follows.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":18,"content":["Who against hope--when no ground for hope appeared. \n\nbelieved in hope--that is, cherished the believing expectation. \n\nthat he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be--that is, Such \"as the stars of heaven,\" Gen 15:5.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":19,"content":["he considered not, &c.--paid no attention to those physical obstacles, both in himself and in Sarah, which might seem to render the fulfilment hopeless.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":20,"content":["He staggered--hesitated \n\nnot . . . but was strong in faith, giving glory to God--as able to make good His own word in spite of all obstacles.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":21,"content":["And being fully persuaded, &c.--that is, the glory which Abraham's faith gave to God consisted in this, that, firm in the persuasion of God's ability to fulfil his promise, no difficulties shook him.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":22,"content":["And therefore it was imputed, &c.--\"Let all then take notice that this was not because of anything meritorious in Abraham, but merely because he so believed.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":23,"content":["Now, &c.--Here is the application of this whole argument about Abraham: These things were not recorded as mere historical facts, but as illustrations for all time of God's method of justification by faith.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":24,"content":["to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe in him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead--in Him that hath done this, even as Abraham believed that God would raise up a seed in whom all nations should be blessed.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":25,"content":["Who was delivered for--\"on account of.\" \n\nour offences--that is, in order to expiate them by His blood. \n\nand raised again for--\"on account of,\" that is, in order to. \n\nour justification--As His resurrection was the divine assurance that He had \"put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself,\" and the crowning of His whole work, our justification is fitly connected with that glorious act.\n\nNote, (1) The doctrine of justification by works, as it generates self-exaltation, is contrary to the first principles of all true religion (Rom 4:2; and see on Rom 3:21-26, Note 1). (2) The way of a sinner's justification has been the same in all time, and the testimony of the Old Testament on this subject is one with that of the New (Rom 4:3, &c., and see on Rom 3:27-31, Note 1). (3) Faith and works, in the matter of justification, are opposite and irreconcilable, even as grace and debt (Rom 4:4-5; and see on Rom 11:6). If God \"justifies the ungodly,\" works cannot be, in any sense or to any degree, the ground of justification. For the same reason, the first requisite, in order to justification, must be (under the conviction that we are \"ungodly\") to despair of it by works; and the next, to \"believe in Him that justifieth the ungodly\"--that hath a justifying righteousness to bestow, and is ready to bestow it upon those who deserve none, and to embrace it accordingly. (4) The sacraments of the Church were never intended, and are not adapted, to confer grace, or the blessings of salvation, upon men. Their proper use is to set a divine seal upon a state already existing, and so, they presuppose, and do not create it (Rom 4:8-12). As circumcision merely \"sealed\" Abraham's already existing acceptance with God, so with the sacraments of the New Testament. (5) As Abraham is \"the heir of the world,\" all nations being blessed in him, through his Seed Christ Jesus, and justified solely according to the pattern of his faith, so the transmission of the true religion and all the salvation which the world will ever experience shall yet be traced back with wonder, gratitude, and joy, to that morning dawn when \"the God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran,\" Act 7:2 (Rom 4:13). (6) Nothing gives more glory to God than simple faith in His word, especially when all things seem to render the fulfilment of it hopeless (Rom 4:18-21). (7) All the Scripture examples of faith were recorded on purpose to beget and encourage the like faith in every succeeding age (Rom 4:23-24; and compare Rom 15:4). (8) Justification, in this argument, cannot be taken--as Romanists and other errorists insist--to mean a change upon men's character; for besides that this is to confound it with Sanctification, which has its appropriate place in this Epistle, the whole argument of the present chapter--and nearly all its more important clauses, expressions, and words--would in that case be unsuitable, and fitted only to mislead. Beyond all doubt it means exclusively a change upon men's state or relation to God; or, in scientific language, it is an objective, not a subjective change--a change from guilt and condemnation to acquittal and acceptance. And the best evidence that this is the key to the whole argument is, that it opens all the wards of the many-chambered lock with which the apostle has enriched us in this Epistle.\n\n\n\n\nNext: Romans Chapter 5\n\n"]}],"introduction":"THE FOREGOING DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH ILLUSTRATED FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT. (Rom. 4:1-25)\n\nWhat shall we say then that Abraham, our father as pertaining to the flesh, hath found?--that is, (as the order in the original shows), \"hath found, as pertaining to ('according to,' or 'through') the flesh\"; meaning, \"by all his natural efforts or legal obedience.\"\n\n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ROM/4.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ROM","chapter":4},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ROM/5.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ROM","chapter":5},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ROM/3.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ROM","chapter":3},"numberOfVerses":20}