allure men by flattery, and spare and indulge their vices, that they may keep them attached to
themselves. He calls those simple who are not cautious enough to avoid deceptions.
19.Your obedience,^481 etc. This is said to anticipate an objection; for he shows that he did not
warn them, as though he thought unfavorably of them, but because a fall in their case was such as
might have easily happened; as if he had said, — “Your obedience is indeed commended everywhere,
and for this reason I rejoice on your account: yet since it often happens, that a fall occurs through
simplicity, I would have you to be harmless and simple as to the doing of evil; but in doing good,
to be most prudent, whenever it may be necessary, so that you may preserve your integrity.”
We here see what that simplicity is which is commended in Christians; so that they have no
reason to claim this distinction, who at this day count as a high virtue their stupid ignorance of the
word of God. For though he approves in the Romans, that they were obedient and teachable, yet
he would have them to exercise wisdom and judgment, lest their readiness to believe exposed them
to impositions. So then he congratulates them, because they were free from a wicked disposition;
he yet wished them to be wise, so as to exercise caution.^482
- What follows, God shall bruise Satan, etc., is a promise to confirm them, rather than a
prayer. He indeed exhorts them to fight manfully against Satan, and promises that they should
shortly be victorious. He was indeed once conquered by Christ, but not in such a way but that he
renews the war continually. He then promises ultimate defeat, which does not appear in the midst
of the contest. At the same time he does not speak only of the last day, when Satan shall be
completely bruised; but as Satan was then confounding all things, raging, as it were, with loose or
broken reins, he promises that the Lord would shortly subdue him, and cause him to be trodden,
as it were, under foot. Immediately a prayer follows, — that the grace of Christ would be with
them, that is, that they might enjoy all the blessings which had been procured for them by Christ.
Romans 16:21-27
- Salutant vos Timotheus, cooperarins
meus, et Lucius et lason et Sosipater, cognati mei. - Timotheus my workfellow, and Lucius,
and Jason, and Sosipater, my kinsmen, salute
you. - Saluto ego vos Tertius, qui scripsi
epistolam, in Domino. - I Tertius, who wrote this epistle, salute
you in the Lord.
(^481) This he calls “faith” in Romans 1:8: so that obedience to the gospel is faith in what it declares. To believe is the special
command of the gospel: hence to believe is the special act of obedience that is required; and he who believes is he who shall be
saved. But this faith is that of the heart, and not of the lips; and a faith which works by love and overcomes the world, the mighty
power of which we learn from Hebrew 11. — Ed.
(^482) “Good” and “evil” in this clause, is beneficence and mischief. To be wise as to good, is to be wise in acts of kindness, in
promoting good, as Beza seems to take it; and to be harmless or guileless, or simple as to evil, is to exercise no arts, by plausible
speeches and flatteries, as was done by those referred to in Romans 16:17, in order to do mischief, to create divisions. The
Apostle’s object throughout seems to have been to produce unanimity between the Jews and Gentiles. Hence in the next verse
he speaks of God as “the God of peace,” the author of peace among his people; and he says that this God of peace would soon
tread down Satan, the author of discord, the promoter of divisions and offenses; or, as most consider the passage, he prays that
God would do this; for the future, after the manner of the Hebrew, is sometimes used by the Apostle as an optative. And indeed
the verb is found in some copies in this mood ( ) and in the Syriac, Ethiopic, and Vulgate versions. — Ed.