Romans 2:7

To them who. — Before the words “eternal life,” at the end of the verse, we must supply “He will render.” The phrase “glory, and honour, and immortality” is practically equivalent to “eternal life.” “Those who honestly seek for this life shall find it.” The stress is upon the words “by patient continuance in well doing,” From the point of view of rhetoric, no doubt exception might be taken to the tautology; but St. Paul was far too much in earnest to attend carefully to the laws of rhetoric, and it is just this spontaneity which is in great part the secret of his power.

Patient continuance. — A single word in the Greek, but rightly translated in the Authorised version, by (according to, by the rule of) patience (persistence or perseverance) in well doing (literally, in good work). In English we should naturally say, “in good works,” but the Greek, here as frequently, by the use of the singular and by the absence of the article, puts the abstract for the concrete, so covering every particular case.