This letter stands justly at the head of the Pauline Epistles. It is more comprehensive and
systematic than the others, and admirably adapted to the mistress of the world, which was to become
also the mistress of Western Christendom. It is the most remarkable production of the most
remarkable man. It is his heart. It contains his theology, theoretical and practical, for which he lived
and died. It gives the clearest and fullest exposition of the doctrines of sin and grace and the best
possible solution of the universal dominion of sin and death in the universal redemption by the
second Adam. Without this redemption the fall is indeed the darkest enigma and irreconcilable
with the idea of divine justice and goodness. Paul reverently lifts the veil from the mysteries of
eternal foreknowledge and foreordination and God’s gracious designs in the winding course of
history which will end at last in the triumph of his wisdom and mercy and the greatest good to
mankind. Luther calls Romans "the chief book of the New Testament and the purest Gospel,"
Coleridge: "the profoundest book in existence." Meyer: "the greatest and richest of all the apostolic
works," Godet (best of all): "the cathedral of the Christian faith."
Theme: Christianity the power of free and universal salvation, on condition of faith.
Leading Thoughts: They are all under sin (Rom. 3:9). Through the law cometh the knowledge
of sin (3:20). Man is justified by faith apart from works of the law (3:28). Being justified by faith
we have (ἔχομενor, let us have, ἔχωμεν) peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (5:1). As
through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death passed unto all
men, for that all sinned (5:12): [so through one man righteousness entered into the world, and life
through righteousness, and so life passed unto all men on condition that they believe in Christ and
by faith become partakers of his righteousness]. Where sin abounded, grace did abound much more
exceedingly: that as sin reigned in death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto
eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord (5:20, 21). Reckon yourselves to be dead unto sin, but
alive unto God in Christ Jesus (6:11). There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus
(8:1). To them that love God all things work together for good (8:28). Whom he foreknew, he also
foreordained to be conformed to the image of his Son ... and whom he foreordained them he also
called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified
(8:29, 30). If God is for us, who is against us (8:31)? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ
(8:35)? Hardening in part hath befallen Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in; and so
all Israel shall be saved (11:25). God hath shut up all unto disobedience, that he might have mercy
upon all (11:32). Of Him, and through Him, and unto Him are all things (11:36). Present your
bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service (12:1).§ 93. The Epistles of the Captivity.
During his confinement in Rome, from a.d. 61 to 63, while waiting the issue of his trial on the
charge of being "a mover of insurrections among all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader
of the sect of the Nazarenes" (Acts 24:5), the aged apostle composed four Epistles, to the Colossians,Paul, each addressed to a different church and having a different ending. Both these views are preferable to Baur’s rejection of
the last two chapters as spurious; though they are full of the Pauline spirit. Hilgenfeld (Einleit., p. 323) and Pfleiderer (Paulinismus,
p. 314) maintain, against Baur, the genuineness of Rom. 15 and Rom. 16. On the names in Rom. 16 see the instructive discussion
of Lightfoot in his Com. on Philippians, pp. 172-176.A.D. 1-100.