Romans 1 - James Nisbet's Church Pulpit Commentary

‘A SERVANT OF JESUS CHRIST’

‘A servant of Jesus Christ.’

Romans 1:1

It is the highest title that is known in earth or heaven—‘a servant of Jesus Christ.’

Service is based on love. Can you help to love Him Who has done all for you?—to love Him dearly? and, loving Him, must you not wish to prove your love? must not your first thought be, ‘What can I do for Him?’

I. Service is a willing surrender of the whole man; and you are at once the most perfectly free and the most absolutely bound. In the strong imagery of Scripture you have ‘given your ear to be bored through with an awl, to fasten you to the post of the door of your Master’s house.’ That is, by a voluntary act—for the love you have to Him—you rivet yourself to the service of Christ and His house the Church, for ever; and from that moment you are, and you feel, and you can say, ‘I am Thy servant.’

II. The next thing which follows this is, that now you are placed in such close communication with your Master, He tells you all His secrets.—And this is the great privilege of the slaves of Jesus. I say slaves—that is the right word—they like to be, and to be called ‘slaves.’ It is God’s own Word, though we have translated it ‘servants.’ And where it is all affection, the lordship cannot be too unrestricted and too bound. But Jesus says to these slaves, ‘Henceforth I call you not slaves, for the slave knoweth not what his Lord doeth; but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father, I have made known unto you.’ So that we get to know not the commands of God only, but His will.

III. And there is another feature in the ‘service’ which makes it unlike every other.—You serve ‘the King of kings and Lord of lords’; but you serve One Who was once a servant! And He can appreciate a servant’s work. He understands it all.

Rev. James Vaughan.

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‘An eminent Missioner says that he was once holding some special services when a woman came to him at the close of the Sunday morning service and said: “Oh, I would give anything to be in this work actively and actually. I would give anything to have some living part in the work that is going on here next week in winning men and women for Christ; but I don’t know what to do.” The Missioner said: “My sister, are you prepared to give the Master the five loaves and the two fishes you possess?” She said: “I don’t know that I have five loaves and two fishes.” The Missioner replied: “Have you anything that stands out at all in your life? Have you anything that you have used in any way especially?” No, she didn’t think she had. “Well,” said the Missioner, “can you sing?” “Well, yes, I sing at home, and I have sung before now in an entertainment.” “Well, now,” he said, “let us put our hand on that. Will you give the Lord your voice for the next ten days? You shall settle with Him at the end as to what you do then, but will you let the Master have your voice for the next ten days?” “I don’t think I can.” “You can sing at an entertainment—can’t you sing in order to save men?” “I will,” she said; and the Missioner says he shall never forget that Sunday evening he asked her to sing and she sang. She sang a Gospel message with the voice she had, feeling it was a poor, worthless thing, and that night there came out to the after-meeting into the inquiry-room one man who said it was the Gospel that was sung which had reached his heart. And from that day to this (and it is now many years ago) that man has been one of the mightiest workers for God in all England. It was brought about because the woman gave her whole self, in that decision, to the service of the Lord; she did what she could for Christ’s dear sake. It blessed her, and it glorified her service, and made it powerful for the salvation of men.’

OUR CALLING

‘Called to be saints.’

Romans 1:7

St. Paul is not writing to great, well-known people. The Church of Christ in Rome did not number many of the high and mighty in the world. Most of its members were of the low and despised class, many even slaves, but whether high or low, slave or free, St. Paul addresses them all alike as ‘beloved of God, called to be saints.’

I. Our calling.—We are not called to be great; we are called to be saints. And what do we mean by saints? The word in the original Greek means ‘holy ones.’ We are called to holiness. ‘How can I lead the holy life? With such temptations to evil, with so much wickedness all round me in the world?’ Are you saying that? Well, then, you can, because others have done so. In fighting the battle against evil in your own hearts and in the outside world, you will not be alone. Some have done their work and have gone to their rest. Others, though perhaps unknown to you, are carrying on the work still. This is the communion of saints; the saints whose rest is won, and the saints who are working still are linked together in one common brotherhood and form one army, and their General is ordering the work, even Christ the Lord.

II. Faith binds all in One.—What is wanted to make ourselves good soldiers in this army? Faith. That is what joins all in One. A belief in the goodness of their cause, a sure trust in the wisdom and goodness of their Leader. Faith is that power which enables a man to live and work in the sight of Christ, although to bodily sight his Leader is invisible. Every one who lives a holy life now, however poor and unknown, is really preaching faith, showing he believes there is something higher and nobler and more worth living for than this world or his own self. May we not add one word of warning? Do not let us think that God’s saints are confined to one particular nation or branch of the Church. Such may be our puny view, but the truth is broader far. In that great vision of the Apocalypse, John beheld standing before the Lamb a great multitude of all nations, and kindreds, and peoples, and tongues. Shall we then ever in the face of this deny salvation to any because they may not think exactly as we do? Not that we should be indifferent about our faith. Our business is to seek with might and main for the truth, and hold it at all costs whenever we may find it.

III. Reverence holiness in all.—We are ready enough to honour it when accompanied by greatness, but do we not sometimes ridicule it and speak of it as a weakness? Perhaps it may be but a weak, a very weak, trial to rise, only a feeble effort to seek after God and holiness, yet holiness and goodness, like all other things, must have a beginning, and our ridicule and disdain may check it in the bud. We are all called to be God’s saints. Shall we be ashamed of the name ourselves or speak slightingly of any one who is trying, however feebly, to live according to his high calling? We are called to be saints, but do we belong to them? Year after year we join in the festival of All Saints, but some day or other a saints’ festival will come when we shall not be here. Others will be joining in the hymn of thanksgiving, but our voice will not be heard. Will they then be giving thanks for us? Shall we be among that great multitude who, together with the saints on earth, make up the mighty Church of God? We ought to be there. It will be our own fault if we are not there, for we are all—each one of us—called to be saints.

—Bishop Were.

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‘All Saints’ Day is a day by itself, quite different from all the other saints’ days in the year. There is, I am afraid, a certain sense of unreality in keeping the usual saints’ days, arising, I suppose, from the fact that the saints themselves seem far removed from us. But All Saints’ Day is quite a different day. No longer are our thoughts directed to one or, at the most, two well-known followers of our Blessed Lord; the Lessons, Collect, and Epistle all speak to us of a great multitude, such a multitude as no man can number, men and women who have lived and died in the faith and fear of our Lord Jesus Christ, and have been received by Him, and are being kept safe in His charge till the day of the final resurrection.’

(SECOND OUTLINE)

‘ONE COMMUNION AND FELLOWSHIP’

A saint is simply a sanctified person; one who is sanctified by the Holy Spirit of God. It does not mean one who is dead; it does not mean one who has been canonised as Saint by the Church; it does not mean, and it is not to be restricted to the Apostles, Evangelists, and the early Christian Martyrs. They are, of course, saints, but there are saints not merely dead but also living, in fact, all Christians are, or have been, saints.

I. A saint is a sanctified person.—Now, we believe in the Christian Church that every person who is baptized is sanctified by the Holy Spirit of God. That the Holy Spirit descends upon every person at his baptism, and that He will dwell within that person, sanctifying him, unless he expel Him by reason of his sin. And, therefore, I wish you to bear in mind that the way in which the Apostle uses the word ‘saints’ in addressing the Romans appeals to us now; in fact, that in every age of the Christian Church there have been saints; that every member of the Christian Church would be a saint were it not for his sins, if, in fact, it were not for the inconsistency of his life. If we were consistent Christians we should all be saints, and it is true that we have all been called to be saints, we have been all elected, or selected, that we might be the saints of God, and if we are not the saints of God it is entirely through our own sins.

II. In the Creed we declare our belief in the communion of saints, but how many persons are there in any congregation who really attach any meaning at all to this article of the Creed? They say that they believe in ‘the communion of saints.’ What do they mean by the communion of saints? If they do not understand what a saint is, they certainly cannot understand what the communion of saints is. We all believe in the communion of saints, that is, we believe that all the saints form one body, one community, one society. What we declare in this article of the Creed is, that we believe that all those saints who have been sanctified by the Holy Spirit, and who have preserved their holiness, that all those who have been made members of the mystical Body of Christ, and have not been finally excluded by their sins, we believe that they all make up the one Body of Christ, that they all make up the one communion of the Christian Church, which is the communion of saints. There is really not much difference between this article of the Creed and the one which precedes it, in which we say that we believe in the Holy Catholic Church. They really mean the same thing. The saints are the Holy Catholic Church, only that in the Holy Catholic Church there are a great many who have unfortunately fallen away from their saintliness, and are so no longer. There are those who, like the tares, will be separated from the wheat at the harvest. We believe that all those, from the descent of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost down to the present day, who have been sanctified by the Holy Ghost, all make up the one Body of Jesus Christ, that they all belong to the Church of Christ. The communion of saints must extend through the whole Church, from its very beginning down to the present day.

III. There are three positions in which the saints of God are.—

(a) There are some in heaven now. The Church has always believed that in heaven are the Blessed Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, His apostles and evangelists, and the prophets and the martyrs. Who else are there we cannot, of course, tell, but there are, no doubt, saints in heaven.

(b) There are saints in the place of departed souls—the faithful departed.

(c) There are saints on earth.

There is a communion, a fellowship, between these three classes of saints. We have communion with the saints in heaven, and we have communion with the saints who are in the place of departed souls.

—Rev. H. M. J. Bowles.

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‘The communion of saints is that partnership and fellowship of privilege, sympathy and love, visible or invisible, silent or expressed, which unites together “the whole family of God in earth and heaven,”—though they be divided upon earth, and though they be separated for a little while by death. It is the necessary result of union with Christ. For all who are His, everywhere, both here and there, being united to Him, Who is their life, they are all members of one body, drawing from one Head, and consequently are knit together in one affection, declaring it when they can, but whether they can utter it or not, equally believing in it, feeling it, comforted by it, delighting in it, in all places, and at all times. That is the communion of saints.’

(THIRD OUTLINE)

GROUNDS OF OUR CALLING

‘Called to be saints.’ By what means?

I. By the election of God, and by the providence of your birth in a Christian land.

II. By the dedication and the grace of your baptism.

III. By those inward calls which from time to time you have felt in your heart.

IV. By the many voices of affliction, and by the constant gentle operations of the Comforter in your soul.

Rev. James Vaughan.

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‘I quite sympathise with the feelings of men of the world, who very often say, “If I am ever a Christian, I will be a very different Christian from the Christians I see.” Do not be a religious person; be “a saint,”—be an eminent “servant of God”; determine that you will be a great Christian, that you will do something large before you die; that you will be really holy, heavenly, God-like—“a saint.” The higher the mark, the easier it is to some minds to reach it. And the reason why some simply do nothing, is because they have not yet conceived great things. Do not be content with common-places, do not be like Christians about you. Throw your ambition into a channel worthy of the capabilities of which you are conscious. Leave beaten tracks, and conventional standards, and the trite ordinary ways of so-called Christians—be “a saint,” be “a saint”! Who knows what a work may be appointed for you to do in this church? Who knows to what a place you are to reach hereafter, in the ever-ascending circles of the blest?’

MARKS OF SPIRITUAL SERVICE

‘God … Whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of His Son.’

Romans 1:9

Here is a remarkable expression—‘Whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of His son.’ St. Paul was a model servant. We profess ourselves to be Christ’s servants. Let us take a lesson from this great exemplar of acceptable service and seek to follow him as he followed Christ. In these words St. Paul strikingly describes the character of his service. Let us notice, first, its marks. They are indicated in the expression to which I again call your attention, ‘ with my spirit.’ It occurs in one other place only in the New Testament, viz. in Php_3:1, where true Christians are described as those who worship God in the spirit. We shall see that it is full of meaning.

I. It was a willing service.—The Lord Jesus Christ will have no compulsion. There are to be no pressed men in His service. There are some persons who are religious, so far as their religion goes, by necessity, the force of circumstances, the force of public opinion, which still considers a profession of religion a respectable thing. But that is not serving God with the spirit. St. Paul was no such unwilling, reluctant servant as that. His was a voluntary, free-hearted service. There were very few inducements in St. Paul’s day to serve God in any other manner except with the spirit. A man attempting to do so would very soon find he had chosen a rough and unpleasant path.

II. This service was intelligent, as opposed to a merely mechanical routine.—There is a very great danger of our falling into a mere routine. The very familiarity with holy things may breed contempt of them before we are aware. The most spiritual duties may come at last to be almost mechanically performed. The only safeguard is to be renewed in our spirit by daily contact with the Holy Spirit of God. St. Paul, at any rate, was no unintelligent worker. How wonderfully he had grasped the great problems of sin and salvation this Epistle is a witness. What a range of spiritual truth does he unveil!

III. It was priestly service.—An examination of the original helps us here. The thought of ‘adoration’ is in the Greek word. It is a liturgical word. It brings before us the idea of the Temple and priestly service. The service St. Paul was rendering to God in the Gospel of His Son was priestly service. The priest of the Old Testament exercised his office in perpetually offering the same sacrifices which could never take away sins; but the true spiritual priest of the New Testament exercises his office in proclaiming the finished work of Christ on Calvary, and the good news of salvation through His merit, freely offered to all them that believe. This thought of priestly service carries with it the idea of the dedication of the body as God’s truest temple. It is a mighty step onward in Christian experience to have learnt what it is to be God’s temple.

—Rev. E. W. Moore.

THE SPHERE OF SPIRITUAL SERVICE

‘I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise, … I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also.’

Romans 1:14-15

To whom was the Apostle sent? We are lost in wonder at his greatness. Natural prejudices, class prejudices, religious prejudices—all went down before him. He declares that his mission is to embrace not only his own people, but the outside nations, and not these only, but the most barbarous and uncultivated of them all; not only the cultured Greeks, but the untutored barbarians. The gospel which he preached was a gospel for every man, for every clime, for every class, the ignorant, for the rich and for the poor, for the privileged and for those who are altogether out of the way.

I. The love of God embraces all, and the Apostle’s heart of love went forth to all the world.—His mission was to every man. His object was to obey his Lord’s command—‘Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.’ And yet, while this catholic spirit pervades his utterance, his thoughts naturally, notwithstanding, centre upon Rome. Throughout this passage we can see how, again and again, he revolves the difficulties and responsibilities of his mission to Rome, and truly those difficulties were neither few nor small. For just as with us to-day there are, so to speak, many worlds, each separate from the other, the world of fashion, the world of art, the world of poverty and suffering, the world of sceptical doubt, and the world of religion—so it was at Rome; yet there, as here, all those subdivisions fell into two great divisions—Rome Christian and Rome antichristian.

II. Christian Rome.—Yes, there was, even when St. Paul wrote this Epistle, a Rome within a Rome, a Rome of which he could write that it was beloved of God, sanctified. Beloved with a love which dated from an ageless eternity—‘I have loved thee with an everlasting love’ (Jeremiah 31:3), a love which rejoiced over the most unworthy objects, over lost ones recovered even from the depths of the vice and iniquity which made Rome, in the language of its own historians, ‘the common sink and sewer’ of the world.

III. Antichristian Rome.—And then, on the other side, there was Rome antichristian. Rome, the mistress of the world, the mightiest city perhaps the world had ever seen, where, side by side, were found splendour and squalor, philosophy and filth, moral corruption and material magnificence, savage cruelty and effeminate luxury. Into this Rome, the shadow of whose darkness falls upon St. Paul’s canvas in the closing verses of the chapter like a funeral pall, the light of the gospel must penetrate, nay, had already penetrated; that little Church in Rome was a light shining in the darkness. How the heart of the Apostle went out to it, how he longed after them all with the ardent affection of the true missionary, though he had never yet seen their face in the flesh! Never repelled by uncongenial surroundings, never daunted by hindrances, his heart went out in love to all with whom he had to do. ‘So, as much as in me is,’ he says, in the fifteenth verse, ‘I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also.’ This, then, was the scope of the Apostle’s mission, it embraced the world, and its universality is one of the many proofs of its Divine origin.

—Rev. E. W. Moore.

NOT ASHAMED OF THE GOSPEL

‘I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.’

Romans 1:16

What are we to understand the Apostle to mean when he says, ‘I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ’?

I. The words may be taken in two ways.

(a) Men may be ashamed of the gospel because of the dislike or ridicule to which a profession of it may expose them. If this thought were in the Apostle’s mind, he would mean something of this kind: I shall not be prevented from holding fast to my profession of faith in the gospel, or from proclaiming it everywhere because of the contempt or odium which I may undergo from those amongst whom my lot may be cast.

(b) Or again, he might mean something of this kind: The gospel of Christ professes to do a great deal for men; it proffers an unfailing satisfaction for their spiritual needs, and an adequate remedy for all their woes; it offers them the forgiveness of their sins and peace with God. It pledges to them the power to lead new lives, to overcome temptation, and to become ‘holy in all manner of conversation.’ Can it accomplish all these things? Will it affect such a transformation for those who commit themselves to it? If not, then they must incur the reproach as well as the disappointment of failure. The gospel is demonstrably a failure if those who embrace it do not obtain reconciliation with God and find in it the power to fight against sin, the world, and the devil. They might justly be regarded as the victims of a fraud, or of a delusion, or of both.

II. But St. Paul could face the issue here, for he knew in himself the power of the gospel as perhaps none had known it hitherto.—For in him it did not merely encounter the dull and stubborn resistance with which the natural heart of man has always met it, but it had to overcome the bitter hostility of a powerful and most energetic mind. It had wrought a wonderful transformation in his own being and character: it had brought about ‘a new creation’; ‘old things had passed away, all things had become new.’ His entire life had been changed by it; for now it was to him ‘the power of God and the wisdom of God,’ even ‘the power of God unto salvation.’ It had saved him already, it was saving him when he wrote, and it would save him at the last. He had tried other methods, and tried them thoroughly; he found peace and holiness only at the feet of Christ. His wonderful conversion and the results which have come from it to the world, are a sufficient proof that no one henceforth need ever to be ashamed of the gospel of Christ.

III. Nor was St. Paul an exception to the general rule; he was an ensample of them which should hereafter believe unto everlasting life. He held most strongly that what the gospel of Christ had done for him, it could do for every one who would but heartily embrace it. And this conviction was the motive power of his extraordinary career as a missionary, as the pioneer of all missions to the heathen until the end of the world. We glory in the belief that the gospel has this power to-day, for it brings us to Christ crucified, risen, glorified, interceding, and ‘able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him.’ The gospel of Christ cannot fail to be the power of God unto salvation to all who will but believe what it teaches, and set themselves to do whatsoever it enjoins.

At the same time there is a real danger for us lest we be ashamed to confess before men what we believe in our hearts touching the gospel of Christ.

—Rev. F. K. Aglionby.

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‘Miss Phillips, of Baghdad, tells of a Mohammedan convert who stood firm under persecution: “A man was converted through reading the Bible at a bookshop of the Arabian Mission. He came to Baghdad on military duty, and was very bold, going frequently to the Rev. J. T. Parfit’s house, and coming openly to church. Of course he was soon arrested and imprisoned. His wife came to see us, and it was most touching to hear her tale, how the soldiers surrounded their house, entered, and seized him. ‘Ah, lady! they loaded him with irons and carried him to prison; the officials tried to frighten him, but he was not afraid. He never denied Christ, he never denied Christ,’ she kept repeating. ‘They threatened to crucify him if he dared say in their presence that he believed in Christ, but he answered, “Crucify me if you will; but I am a servant of Christ, and will not deny Him.” ’ We all knelt in prayer together, that he might be strengthened and delivered from his persecutors.” ’

THE GOSPEL AND LIFE

‘I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.’

Romans 1:16

‘The power of God unto salvation.’ The words come home to us with a personal and intimate appeal. And many of us must add here also, ‘I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ’; for the old methods seemed to be called in question, the old means of grace, as they are called, pushed on one side for appeals which are of power to men of culture, of recognised worth to men of strong will; which at least cannot be accused of credulity and which will pass muster in times of intellectual progress and general amelioration of the conditions of life.

I. There is no question as to the moral weakness, which we are conscious of, in face of the assaults of evil.—Have you ever paused to realise the strength of those assaults? There are few things more awful than to read of the fall of good men, such as those which Holy Scripture so mercifully portrays. We know, alas! that neither education, nor tradition, nor love, nor fear of consequences avail, in the face of education and in spite of culture, to resist the storm-flood of temptation which creeps up with its triple wave to thunder against the barrier of respectability, and toss about like straws the ethical precepts of human refinement. We know it ourselves, in our own spiritual life; when we have set ourselves in our sphere of business to accomplish some object, by dint of resolution we can generally succeed. But in spiritual matters, in our prayers, the government of the tongue, the control of our temper, to say nothing of other things, how we fail again and again! Yet the Bible never falters in its clear note of encouragement. ‘The power of God unto salvation unto every one that believeth.’

II. In the face of this great news it is surely somewhat lamentable that there should be so much moral impotence among us.—Why should we be for ever going about murmuring sorrowfully, ‘poor human nature,’ when we ought rather to be exultingly proclaiming—‘Strong Divine grace,’ ‘By the grace of God I am what I am?’ This is what we ought to be able to say, instead of ‘by reason of my nature, by reason of my weakness, I am the poor miserable creature which you see me to be.’ There is a great waste somewhere. Look at the churches which stand up dominating the towns and villages in our land. Here, day by day, we stand up and say, ‘I believe in God the Father Almighty,’ when all the time we believe that a habit is stronger than He. Here we profess, day by day, our belief in a Saviour, when we know all the time that every man has his price, and that when the temptation comes we shall fall again. Why do we say that we believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord, the Life-giver, if we tamper with His voice, when He speaks in conscience, refuse to hear His Church, and despise His Scriptures?

III. Christianity is suffering not so much from its blatant enemies as from the feeble lives of those who call themselves Christians.—Every time we yield to a sense of moral impotence, or acquiesce in a low or a diseased vitality, we are spreading abroad an atmosphere which, in the end, reacts fatally on the health of the community. It will be a terrible thing if it can be said at home, as it is sometimes said abroad, that Christians are the chief foes to Christianity. ‘The power of God unto salvation.’ Let us exhibit this in greater fullness and in greater strength. For a good Christian is in himself a gospel. ‘They that fear Thee will be glad when they see me, because I have put my trust in Thy word.’ Do you say ‘Too late! My life is shaped by its past. I am what the past has made me to be. My habits are formed. I am too old to alter now, I must do as well as I can!’ The power of the gospel is never exhibited more wonderfully than in the power of recovery. There is, it may be, the Alsatia in our heart, that place where the king’s writ does not run, where for years we have allowed habit to run unchecked, evil to remain unmolested, where passion and impulse have moved in defiance of the will, the dictates of reason, or the pleading of the Spirit. Christ can give us the power to throw this region once more into the ordered and disciplined circle of our heart. The power of recovery is one of the most glorious blessings of the gospel.

Rev. Canon Newbolt.

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‘In a well-known part of our island the railway is carried along the coast for some distance close to the shore, separated from it by a sea-wall of massive blocks of stone firmly compacted as a barrier against the tide. If you pass along on a summer day when the waves come rippling up to break idly on the beach, it is a scene of peaceful beauty. But look to yourself when the high tides come rushing in, driven by the gales and lashed by the storm. It used to be said that if this wall had been made of gold, it could not have cost the railway company more money, owing to the necessity of constant repairs. It is when the storms of life’s temptations burst upon us that we know at once the strength of grace, and the weakness of nature.’

(SECOND OUTLINE)

THE CHRISTIAN’S FIRST PROMISE

We have all promised not to be ashamed of the gospel of Christ. It is the first promise we ever made—that hereafter we would not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified, and manfully to fight under His banner. It is, or should be, an easier promise for us than for St. Paul.

I. St. Paul laid down the lines upon which the struggle of the Church against paganism was carried on.

(a) No compromise whatever was permitted with idolatry.

(b) The bond which was to keep society together was proclaimed to be affection, confidence, and kindness, and this principle was acted upon in a way which impressed even the pagans.

(c) A most strenuous campaign was instituted against all the vices which poison a wholesome family life.

In all these three campaigns the Church boldly stood forward in opposition to the social practice of the day. The world was on one side, the Church on the other. Compromises—lamentable comprises—were made in some directions, but on the whole, and especially in the earlier periods, before the alliance with the secular power, the Christian Church made a very brave protest against the accepted standard of social morality, and, by steadily inculcating views which the man of the world regarded as impracticable, conferred signal benefits on the human race.

II. Is the Church’s battle, then, over?—Was it fought out and won when Europe accepted Christianity? Has the offence of the Cross ceased now that we see it glittering on the breasts of heroes and emblazoned on the banners of princes, instead of being regarded with loathing as the hideous emblem of a ghastly punishment? Compare the standards which are avowed and acted upon all around us with those which we find in the New Testament.

III. Do we not, then, need a public opinion among religious people, a standard of conduct avowed, professed, acted upon, expected of each other, which shall be quite unmistakably different from that of the world? Is it not chiefly to maintain such a standard that a Church exists? Ought not all who wish to lead the higher life to be able to feel that there is among them a society which exists for this very thing, a society which is pledged to witness in every way to the truth of those ideals and to their possibility under existing conditions, and to support and encourage all who wish to follow Christ? This aspect of Church life is, I fear, more often remembered in some other religious bodies than in our own Church. But those especially who attach great value to primitive tradition should remember that the Church began its career as a society closely united in the attempt to live in a different manner from the world around it.

IV. Evils can only be met by manfully opposing to them another way of living—the gospel of Christ. Christianity is a Divine life, not a Divine science. We were all baptized into a death and into a life—a death unto sin and a life unto righteousness. And we who have been ordained are ordained into a life—a life more immediately dedicated to that witness, that protest which the Church still has to make against the world. We need your prayers that we may never be ashamed of the gospel of Christ. But remember that you, too, have promised to renounce all that we have promised to renounce, and to perform what we have promised to perform. God grant that none of us who are here to-day may ever be ashamed of our Master and His words, lest He also be ashamed of us when we pass to our final account!

—Rev. Professor Inge.

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‘It required some moral courage for a Jew of Tarsus to write an Epistle to the Romans, even if the “Romans” were mostly Roman Jews. Rome was then the one centre of civilisation as no modern capital can claim to be. Even the Jews residing there must have felt some contempt for their brethren in the provinces, and some reluctance to accept teaching which came from parts so much out of the world, so far from the centre of culture and intelligence, as Eastern Asia Minor. Christianity had as yet made few conquests in high places. Not many wise or noble or mighty had been called. Although it was as fashionable at Rome to play with new religions as it is in London now, Christianity had not even won this doubtful kind of recognition from the upper class. It was too uncompromising a creed to be taken up as a craze. St. Paul’s message was no ingenious philosophical theory, no new and quaint cult, with mysterious or picturesque ceremonies. His gospel, he knew well, was to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness. It offended the Jew by repudiating all that was left to him of his national inheritance—his fanatical pride and exclusiveness; and as for the pagan, the tremendous passage which follows my text shows how little intention the Apostle had of conciliating pagan prejudices.’

(THIRD OUTLINE)

THE POWER OF GOD

I. Those who receive it will know its power within themselves.

II. It will also become manifest to others that it is no form of godliness without its power which they possess. They will have the knowledge which comes to those ‘who will to do God’s will’; the precepts of the gospel will become as precious to them as its promises.

III. It will further be shown in self-denial, in taking up the Cross, in patience under tribulation, in requiting good for evil, in courtesy, in kindness, in preferring others to ourselves, in eschewing all self-seeking.

Where such things as these accompany a Christian profession, there is proof that a power greater than human is at work transforming and transfiguring character.

IV. There is much indeed that is lovely which natural religion may work in men’s characters, but there are supernatural graces which the Holy Spirit dwelling in those who have received the gospel of Christ can only produce. These are known as ‘the fruits of the Spirit,’ and where they grow the wilderness and the solitary places of human life are glad for them: they rejoice and blossom as the rose. And the Christian character, that is, the salvation of which St. Paul speaks in the text, cannot be realised elsewhere, however fair may be the approximations to it.

Rev. F. K. Aglionby.

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‘There was a fitness for St. Paul writing to the Romans, to speak of the “gospel” as a “power.” Power would be the leading idea of the Roman. He would measure everything by its “power.” Therefore, on the same principle, that when he addresses the most learned people of the earth, he called “the gospel” “the wisdom of God”—so now, in his epistle to Rome, he exhibited it under another of its aspects, and says, “it is the power of God.” ’

(FOURTH OUTLINE)

THE POWER OF THE CROSS

The gospel which St. Paul preached was the gospel of the Cross, and we are here to tell you that it has still its ancient power. The Cross has:—

I. A captivating power.—‘I,’ said Christ, ‘if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me.’ Yes, ‘The Cross is the attraction.’ When we get a vision of the Cross, when we see that

Love eternal, free and boundless,

Forced the Lord of Life to die,

Lifted up the Prince of princes

On the Throne of Calvary,

then our hearts are drawn, in spite of self and sin, to gaze and trust and live.

II. A convicting power.—It is at the Cross that there is borne in upon us the heinousness of our guilt, the demerit of our sin. If men would but fix their gaze in real earnest on the Cross, then they would see there is indeed a mystery there. There is sin there, there is guilt there, but the guilt and sin are not the Sufferer’s own, they are yours and mine. The Cross of Christ convicts us of our sin. When nothing else will do it that will.

III. A consoling power.—It tells us that out of that very death our sins procured, our life and pardon spring.

While His death my sin displays

In all its blackest hue,

Such is the mystery of grace,

It seals my pardon too.

His death secures our life. Blessed comfort of the Cross, which tells me that in that death my sins are dead!

IV. A conquering power.—it tells me not only that my sins are pardoned, but that they are crucified. It shows me that those evil lusts that lurk within my soul, that wickedness which was the cause of all my woe, has been nailed yonder to the accursed tree. It was crucified with Christ, and now I am to reckon myself free from its power.

V. A constraining power.—It teaches me that I am not my own; that I am His, Who has bought me with His blood. Henceforth I live not to myself but to Him Who died for me and rose again. The nails are driven into my selfishness and hatefulness and pride, and I must live henceforth a crucified, and yet a risen life, in union with Him, in Whom

My bands are all untied.

What do we know of this conquering and constraining power of the Cross? Has it changed our lives as it changed St. Paul’s? Are we living close enough to it to experience its power?

Rev. E. W. Moore.

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‘The Moravian missionaries laboured in Greenland for five years without result. In the beginning of June, 1738, Brother Beck, in speaking of the redemption of man, enlarged on the sufferings and death of our Saviour. He then read to them the history of our Saviour’s agony in the garden. One of the company, named Kagarnak, exclaimed, “Tell me that once more, for I desire to be saved.” These words, which were such as had never before been uttered by a Greenlander, filled the soul of Beck with joy. Kagarnak became a sincere Christian, and was the firstfruits of a happy harvest. The missionaries now determined to preach Christ and Him crucified in the literal sense of the words.’

(FIFTH OUTLINE)

HAVE WE POWER?

This is the power that dwells in your hearts—the power of no less a Being than God. You may resist it; you may grieve it; you, alone of all created things, can rebel against that sovereign might which it is your privilege to possess. But if you will receive it, if you really want it, if you cry after it, feel you cannot do without it, then there it is working in your heart, struggling for you, fighting for you against the enemy, and giving you the victory at last. There it is—a power.

Bring, then, your religion to this test. If it will not stand it, it is a thing to be despised, to be ashamed of before the world, to be ashamed of at the last great day.

I. Apply the test to your temptations.—People of some earnestness are wont to speak of their falls in a sad, yet listless sort of way, as if it were absolutely necessary for them to yield, absolutely impossible to resist—and so they go on yielding. But is it needful thus to give way? What! With God’s power working in you, with the power that made the world dwelling in you? With Him to look to Who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all we can ask or think? Surely, with such help, we need not, we must not fall; with such an ally, it is base, it is shameful so to yield.

II. Apply the test again to our prayers.—We try to pray, we are anxious to pray. But then our prayers are so very weak; our thoughts wander. Here, even in God’s house, the prayers go up, but we ourselves join so little in them. Was there any power in them, any earnestness, any deep sense of want? Why is it so? Is it the force of temptation? Is it the power of the enemy? He is certain to molest the man who prays. The man who prays is slipping from the devil’s grasp; and if he can meddle with our prayers, he will put forth all his strength and craft to do it. But, then, there is the power that dwelleth in us, the power which recognises our difficulties: which, taking into consideration the truth that we know not what to pray for as we ought, helpeth, it is said, our infirmities and maketh intercession for us and with us, with groanings which cannot be uttered. Have we worked with that power? Have we co-operated with it with half the energy we have given to some earthly business? Have we given to it half the eagerness which we have thrown into some passing pleasure? Thus these supplications, being destitute of the offered power, are things of which, before the world and before God, we may well be ashamed.

III. Apply the test to our affections.—Is there power in our love to God? Do we love Him with a burning and an earnest love. We do so love when the object is an earthly friend, when it is a parent, a wife, a little one. There is power to such a love as that. We feel it working and reigning within our hearts. Difficulties vanish before such a love, and labour is not grievous, and self-denial is not hard. But when we think of our love to God, to Him Who is indeed our Father, to Him Who has fed us, clothed us, preserved us, sustained us; and, as though that were not enough goodness to show to guilty sinners, did yet more—redeemed us, died for us, shed His precious blood for us, rescued us from sin and death eternal—when we think of our love to Him, to our God, to our Saviour, is there any power, any strength in our love to Him? Is it not, even with serious, thoughtful people, all complaint? We do not love Him. We cannot love Him! Our souls cleave to the dust and will not rise up, as they should, to Him. We grieve over this in a kind of sentimental way, and thus satisfy our consciences that we have offered Him a sufficient substitute for love. But why do we not love Him? Why is not our love strong and fervent? Why is the only thing we can return to Him for all His goodness to us doled out to Him in such pitiful measure?

Religion, if it be worth anything, must be a power; and the contempt into which it has from time to time fallen is the fault of Christians, is our own fault, because we have exhibited it before the world too much as a mere profession.

—Rev. J. H. Drew.

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‘Sometimes professing Christians are beset by special hindrances to their usefulness—tendencies of speech or action that mar the beauty of holiness most sadly. What are you going to do with the evil habit, or the half-dozen, that are hindering you? Fight them one by one; that is one way. What did you do last winter when the panes of the window were covered with frost, and you could not see out of them? Did you scratch it off with a knife? That would take too long. Heat up the room and the frost goes off the pane. Warm up the soul with the love of Christ and the bad habits will run off. That is what Chalmers calls the “expulsive power of a new affection.” Bring Jesus Christ into the soul, and you will overcome the evil habits.’

(SIXTH OUTLINE)

OUR RESPONSIBILITY TOWARDS THE GOSPEL

If ‘the gospel of Christ’ be this ‘power,’ then:—

I. Honour it in your own heart.—I have no doubt that I am speaking to some one who feels, ‘I am a very great sinner. The power of evil is very strong over me at this moment. The resistance of my own heart is violent. Satan’s influence is tremendous.’ I know it. The honour of a strong thing lies in the strength of the thing it overcomes. The stronger that your sin is, the more will Christ be exalted in forgiving it. Tell Him so.

II. Believe, let the simplest act or thought go forth, and ‘lay hold on God’s strength that you may make peace with Him, and you shall make peace with Him.’ Nay more, ‘He will put His strength into you’; and the power of Christ will be ‘the power of God,’ and He will make you feel quite safe—safe from yourselves, safe from the thing you are afraid of, safe when meeting God, safe from condemnation, absolutely safe, for ever and ever, ‘the power of God to your salvation.’

II. Woe to us if we do not wield the power that is put into our hands!—The Church is in the possession of the engine which can do anything; the lever and the fulcrum that can move the universe; enrich, bless, and save the whole world. And the responsibility is before you. Remember it when you are in Society; remember it when you are talking to a gay friend; remember it when you are speaking to your sister, or to your brother, or to your child. ‘It is the power of God unto salvation’ which you have in your hands.

—Rev. James Vaughan.

(SEVENTH OUTLINE)

WITNESSES TO THE POWER

Let us look at some facts in reference to this power.

I. The Christian religion is the only religion in the whole world which has ever had ‘power’ to set in motion real missionary action.—No other creed ever produced missions. Why is this? The selfishness and the sluggishness of human nature is exclusive, and it requires an immense lever to stir it, and nothing in the world has ever been found equal to do it, except the love of such a God as we have in Christ—a Father through a Saviour. That, and that only, can thrust out—I am using our Lord’s own word in the original—that, and that only, can ‘thrust out labourers into the vineyard.’ We have something to say worth making a mission for—we have a motive which can send us forth to say it. Hence missions. ‘It is the power of God.’

II. See what the gospel of God does in all lands wherever it is planted—what changes, moral and religious—what softening of savagery—what amelioration—what civilisation—what elevation—it carries along with it. True, it may be hindered by adverse circumstances—especially by the inconsistencies, the rapacity, the lust, the sin of Christians. But in itself the gospel always grows into an improvement in every thing. The Christians’ spot is always the bright, green spot in every country. No other means have ever done this—they have been tried, and they have failed. Why? It is because it is ‘the power,’ the appointed ‘power of God to salvation.’

III. Let me tell you the experience of every Christian minister.—It is when he preaches the full, simple gospel—and just in proportion as it is full and simple, that he gets all his success. If he preach morality, or an abstract divinity, or a gospel which is no gospel, or a half gospel, he has no results whatever—never a better life. But Christ, a free Christ, carries everything. It draws, it changes, it comforts, it purifies, it raises, it meets every instinct of nature, it fills every void that is in the soul. What must it be that does all that but ‘the power of God’?

IV. Listen to the witness of your own heart.—What have been the best hours of your life—the hours which give you pleasure in the retrospect, where memory loves to dip? Look back upon them. They are the hours when Christ was most to you, when you had some feeling that you were loved, some hope that you were forgiven, when your heart was made soft and tender by that thought. Those are the happiest and best times of your life—and that was the still ‘power of God.’

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‘The Rev. Howard Williams, Molepolole, British Bechuanaland, tells the following anecdote of a Christian Bakwena: “Kgasi-nchu was a good man. His life had been equally consistent. I remember on one occasion his daughter was to have been married to a grandson of the chief’s uncle—the leader in all the heathen practices of the tribe. Kgasi-nchu refused, as a Christian man, to receive the bogadi (equal to our marriage settlement, but which is proscribed by the Church, on account of its heathen requirements). A great meeting was held, at which I was present. Feeling ran so high that I was advised not to speak. Kgasi-nchu was present, and I remember how his life even was threatened at that very meeting, but he stuck to his colours, and eventually won. We do thank God for such men.” ’

MISSIONS TO JEWS

‘To the Jew first.’

Romans 1:16

I. Why are missions to the Jews so often neglected?—Is it suggested that the gospel is not for them? Do people, consciously or unconsciously, limit the offer of salvation thus?

II. The acknowledged difficulty of Jewish work may be advanced in extenuation of this neglect. But difficulties did not arrest the Apostles’ mission. They also had to meet with Jewish opposition and indifference. But though they turned to the Gentiles, it was in addition to, and not in substitution for, work amongst the Jews. There have in every age been difficulties in preaching to Gentiles also; but they are not deemed insuperable.

III. The difficulties of Jewish work are often exaggerated.—With them here and there the gospel is still the power of God unto salvation.

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‘Miss M. P. Baily, missionary at Teheran, Persia, thus describes a young Jewish girl convert’s confession of faith: “Without any fear, after her baptism, she bravely stood up in a large meeting I was taking on a Saturday, to proclaim her faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. I was explaining the Creed, sentence by sentence, and had duly taken the first sentences with reference to God the Father. When the following Saturday came, I said to them: ‘Last week you were all quite willing to proclaim your belief in God the Father, that He is Almighty, and the Creator of heaven and earth; how many of you are willing to confess to-day, “I believe in Christ”?’ I waited silently in prayer. The room was very, very quiet, and, presently, the very first one to rise was my dear S. With flushed cheeks, but calm, clear voice, her face partly shrouded by her veil, she rose and distinctly said, ‘ I believe in Jesus Christ.’ Again I said, ‘Thank God; are there any others?’ and four young lads repeated the same words, and in my heart I praised God. The silence in the meeting was very marked, and I felt the power of the Holy Spirit in our midst.” ’

(SECOND OUTLINE)

THE CLAIM OF THE JEW

‘To the Jew first.’

I. Fulfilling ancient prophecy.

II. Recognising the continuance of their special relation to God.

III. Exemplifying in the most marked way the pardon which in Christ is offered.

IV. But ‘to the Jew first’ does not imply ‘to the Jew no longer.’—They are not to be set aside as unworthy, or unapproachable, or beyond the work of the Holy Spirit. Their converts adorn the Christian ministry and lay life.

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‘The Rev. R. W. Harden (The Church and the Jew, p. 3) says: “It is asserted, and I believe with truth, that as each Lord’s Day comes round the gospel is proclaimed in more than six hundred pulpits by Jewish lips. Over 350 of the recognised ministers of Christ in Great Britain are stated to be Hebrew Christians. Can such a return be shown in the records of missions to the heathen?” ’

JEW AND GREEK

‘To the Jew first, and also to the Greek.’

Romans 1:16

The Jew and the Greek were respectively the loftiest and the noblest exponents of the races and religions of the East and the West. St. Paul shows the fitness of the gospel to meet and to satisfy the needs and requirements of nationalities so widely different as these.

I. The gospel finds a centre of union between them, and that centre is Christ, for it welds all the nations and peoples of the earth together in one great Church. To reconcile such opposing forces might appear to transcend human thought, and its supreme difficulty to banish it to the region of ideas and ideals which can never be realised. But the gospel of Christ aims at nothing less. St. Paul was, perhaps, the first to be convinced that such a reconciliation was possible, and that it was being brought about. It was contained in our Saviour’s words, ‘I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me.’ And experience had already proved that the gospel of the Crucified was the magnet which drew men nearer to each other as it drew them alike to ‘Him Who died for all.’

II. Consider the attitude of the Jew and of the Greek towards the gospel, as the Apostle describes it in his first Epistle to the Corinthians. ‘Christ crucified,’ he says, ‘is to the Jews a stumblingblock, and to the Greeks foolishness.’ But the gospel availed to overcome these radical antagonisms, and it is an encouragement now when we meet with the same spirit of opposition to know that it can also be surmounted. These types of mind may hinder men from receiving the gospel altogether, or they may mar their reception of it in its fullness and simplicity.

(a) There is the character of which the Jew is a type, the self-righteous, the Pharisaic. Such as have it possess a high standard of right and duty, in accordance with which they strive to live, but the measure of their attainment they ascribe chiefly to their own efforts. They have no strong feeling that they need the grace of God, which, therefore, they do not seek by earnest prayer. To them, as to the Jew, Christ crucified is the stumbling-block.

(b) The Greek, i.e. the representative of that great and gifted people, regarded the preaching of the Cross as ‘foolishness.’ How, he would say, can men bring themselves to worship a crucified Jew? The entire Christian economy seemed to him preposterous. He treated it with scorn and ridicule. It ran counter to all his ideals; it set forth strange doctrines concerning human nature. Atonement by sacrifice seemed to him a discredited and obsolete superstition. He regarded such as held it with a mixture of pity and contempt. To the Christian of that age it was no small trial to be regarded in this way by the wise and learned of this world. If he did not quail before their scorn, he was in danger of keeping too much in the background those doctrines of the Christian revelation which were most likely to excite opposition. We must not forget that there are still persons to whom the preaching of the Cross is foolishness. They cannot reconcile it with views which they have formed respecting the character of God, and of any revelation which professes to come from Him.

III. We must not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified, however narrow-minded and fanatical we may seem when we declare that there is no salvation in any other. When men oppose us herein, we should seek in meekness to instruct them, if peradventure God may give them repentance unto the knowledge of the truth.

—Rev. F. K. Aglionby.

JUSTIFYING FAITH

‘For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.’

Romans 1:17

After affirmation of his not being ashamed of the gospel, the Apostle states his reason for making it his glory: ‘It is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.’ And then he explains how it avails to this end.

I. There is no salvation without a justifying righteousness.

II. Justifying righteousness is unattainable by the sinner’s own works.

III. The gospel reveals a justifying righteousness.

IV. This righteousness is wholly of God.

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‘There are two things taught us by the phrase “revealed”—first, it is intimated that the subject of the gospel is something unknown, inconceivable before. It is a thing which by the gospel is unveiled, discovered—a new thing, which eye had not seen, nor ear heard. The righteousness it reveals is made known nowhere else. It is an apocalypse. The works of creation said nothing of such a righteousness. Questioned as to how man should be just with God, the oracles of nature were dumb. Heaven knew nothing of it—holy angels were just by innocence. The law said nothing of it. It was only, “Do, and live.” Created intellects could not conceive it. It was revealed to finite minds, like the first creation of light. The Divine mind alone could give birth to the thought, and the Divine heart alone prompt its execution. But the word “revealed” suggests that what was hid before is now clearly and impressively manifested. And here the gospel stands in contrast with previous dispensations.’