Romans 1:1

“ Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, an apostle by [his] call, separated unto the gospel of God, which he had promised afore by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures. ”

Paul introduces himself in this Romans 1:1 with the utmost solemnity; he puts his whole letter under the authority of his apostleship, and the latter under that of God Himself. On the name Paul, see Introd. p. 16. After having thus presented his personality, he effaces it, as it were, immediately by the modest title of δοῦλος servant. We need not translate this term by the word slave, which in our modern languages suggests a more painful idea than the Greek term. The latter contains the two ideas of property and of obligatory service. It may consequently be applied to the relation which every Christian bears to the Lord (1 Corinthians 7:22). If we take it here in this sense, the name would imply the bond of equality in the faith which unites Paul to his brethren at Rome. Yet as this letter is not a simple fraternal communication, but an apostolic message of the highest importance, it is more natural to take the word servant in a graver sense, the same as it certainly has in the address of the Epistle to the Philippians 1:1: “Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi.” The term servant, thus contrasted with the term saints, evidently denotes a special ministry. In point of fact, there are men who are called to exemplify the general submission which all believers owe to the Lord, in the form of a particular office; they are servants in the limited sense of the word. The Received reading: of Jesus Christ, sets first in relief the historical person (Jesus), then His office of Messiah (Christ). This form was the one which corresponded best to the feeling of those who had first known Jesus personally, and afterward discovered Him to be the Messiah. And so it is the usual and almost technical phrase which prevailed in apostolic language. But the Vat. and the Vulg. read: Χριστοῦ ᾿Ιησου, of Christ Jesus; first the office, then the person. This form seems preferable here as the less usual. It corresponded to the personal development of Paul, who had beheld the glorified Messiah before knowing that He was Jesus. The title servant was very general, embracing all the ministries established by Christ; the title apostle denotes the special ministry conferred on Paul. It is the most elevated of all. While Christ's other servants build up the church, either by extending it (evangelists) or perfecting it (pastors and teachers), the apostles, with the prophets (Christian prophets), have the task of founding it; comp. Ephesians 4:12. Paul was made a partaker of this supreme charge.

And he was so, he adds, by way of call. The relation between the two words called and apostle is not that which would be indicated by the paraphrase: “Called to be an apostle.” This meaning would rather have been expressed by the participle (κληθείς). In Romans 1:7, the corresponding phrase: called saints, has quite another meaning from: called to be saints (which would assume that they are not so). The meaning is: saints by way of call, which implies that they are so in reality. Similarly, Paul means that he is an apostle, and that he is so in virtue of the divine vocation which alone confers such an office. There is here no polemic against the Judaizers; it is the simple affirmation of that supreme dignity which authorizes him to address the church as he is now doing; comp. Ephesians 1:1; Colossians 1:1. These two ideas, apostle and call, naturally carry our minds back to the time of his conversion. But Paul knows that his consecration to this ministry goes farther back still; and this is the view which is expressed in the following phrase: ἀφωρισμένος, set apart. This word, in such a context, cannot apply to any human consecration, such as that which he received along with Barnabas at Antioch, with a view to their first mission, though the same Greek term is used, Acts 13:2. Neither does it express the notion of an eternal election, which would have been denoted by the compound προωρισμένος, destined beforehand,” as in the other cases where a decree anterior to time is meant. The expression seems to me to be explained by the sentence, Galatians 1:15, which is closely related to this: “But when it pleased God, who had separated me (ἀφορίσας με) from my mother's womb, and called me (καλέσας με) by His grace.” In this passage of the Galatians he comes down from the selection to the call, while here he ascends from the call to the selection. Let the reader recall what we have said, Introd. Philippians 4 and 5, as to the providential character of all the previous circumstances of Saul's life. The apostle might well recognize in that whole chain the signs of an original destination to the task with which he saw himself invested. This task is expressed in the words: unto the gospel of God, εἰς εὐαγγέλιον Θεοῦ. If by the word gospel we understand, as is usually done, the contents of the divine message, then we must place the notion of preaching in the preposition εἰς, in order to, and paraphrase it thus: “ in order to proclaim the gospel.”

This meaning of the word gospel is hardly in keeping with the living character of primitive Christian language. The word rather denotes in the New Testament the act of gospel preaching; so a few lines below, Romans 1:9, and particularly 1 Thessalonians 1:5, where Paul says: “Our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance; as ye know what manner of men we were among you.” These words have no sense unless by our gospel, Paul means, our preaching of the gospel. In this case the preposition for preserves its simple meaning. The absence of the article before the words gospel and God, give to the words a sort of descriptive sense: a message of divine origin. The genitive Θεοῦ, of God, here denotes the author of the message, not its subject; for the subject is Christ, as is mentioned afterward. Paul thus bears within him the unspeakably elevated conviction of having been set apart, from the beginning of his existence, to be the herald of a message of grace (εὖ ἀγγέλλειν, to announce good news) from God to mankind. And it is as the bearer of this message that he addresses the church of Rome. If the apostle does not add to his name that of any fellow-laborer, as he does elsewhere, it is because he is doing this act in his official character as the apostle of the Gentiles, a dignity which he shares with no other. So it is Ephesians 1:1 (in similar circumstances).

But this preaching of salvation by the apostles has not dropped suddenly from heaven. It has been prepared or announced long before; this fact is the proof of its decisive importance in the history of humanity. This is what is expressed in Romans 1:2.

Several commentators think that the words: which He had promised afore, had no meaning, unless the word gospel, Romans 1:1, be taken as referring to salvation itself, not as we have taken it, to the act of preaching. But why could not Paul say that the act of evangelical preaching had been announced beforehand? “Who hath believed our preaching? ” exclaims Isaiah (Isaiah 53:1), “and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?” And Isaiah 52:7: “How beautiful are the feet of him who bringeth good tidings, and who publisheth peace!” Finally, Isaiah 40:1-2: “Comfort ye my people, your God will say...Cry unto Jerusalem, that her set time is accomplished.” The apostle himself quotes these passages, Romans 10:15-16. The preaching of the gospel to Jews and Gentiles appears to him a solemn act marking a new era, the hour of universal salvation long expected; so he characterizes it also, Acts 17:30; Ephesians 3:5-7; Titus 1:3. It is not wonderful that his feelings rise at the thought of being the principal instrument of a work thus predicted! He thereby becomes himself a predicted person, continuing as he does the work of the prophets by fulfilling the future they announced. The πρό, beforehand, added to the word promise, is not a pleonasm; it brings out forcibly the greatness of the fact announced. The pronoun αὐτοῦ, “ His prophets,” denotes the close relation which unites a prophet to God, whose instrument he is. The epithet holy, by which their writings are characterized, is related to this pronoun. Holiness is the seal of their divine origin. The absence of the article before γραφαί, scriptures, has a descriptive bearing: “in scriptures which have this character, that they are holy.”

Baur and his school find in this mention of the prophetic promises a proof of the Judeo-Christian origin of the majority of the church, and of the desire which the apostle had to please it. But the Old Testament was read and known in the churches of the Gentiles; and the object with which the apostle refers to the long theocratic preparation which had paved the way for the proclamation of salvation, is clear enough without our ascribing to him any so particular intention.

This mention of prophecy forms the transition to Romans 1:3, where Jesus is introduced in the first place as the Jewish Messiah, and then as the Son of God.