Romans 13
Butler18. Lieth in you.** The emphasis is best laid on the word you. Not a mere repetition of the first clause, “if it be possible,” but further insisting on that thought, as if in answer to the suggestion, “I would but somebody else will not.” A proverb says, “It takes two to quarrel”: keep peace on your side. O. E. D.—Remember that, when any man reviles you, it is not the tongue that gives you the opprobrious language that injures or affronts you; but it is your own resentment of it as an injury or affront that makes it such to you. Epictetus.
19. The second injury, done by way of revenge, differs from the first that provoked it little or nothing but in point of time; and certainly no one man’s sin can procure privilege to another to sin in that or the like kind. If another hath broken the bonds of his allegiance and obedience to God and of charity to thee, yet thou art not the less tied by the same bonds still. By revenge of injuries thou usurpest upon God’s prerogative, who is the avenger, as the apostle teaches. This doth not forbid either the magistrate’s sword for just punishment of offenders, or the soldier’s sword in a just war; but such revenges as, without authority or a lawful call, the pride and perverseness of men do multiply one against another: in which is involved a presumptuous contempt of God and his supreme authority, or at least the unbelief and neglect of it. L.—20.
Coals of fire. That fiery coals signify benefits is manifest by the words of Solomon which the apostle here reciteth. Benefits may properly be called coals of fire, for they inflame the heart with love, which was before cold and inactive. Luther.
21. When we meet with an opposition which frets and irritates us, Christian prudence counsels us to pray that the temptation may be removed; and in particular that our self-love and injured feelings may not weaken our love for our neighbor. But this prudence, if it counsels nothing further, is not prudent enough. If the same feeling which disposes us to pray does not dispose us to pray for our enemies or opponents, it is difficult to believe that it is a movement of charity. Charity can not be thus arrested. Its nature is to overcome evil with good, and this means not merely that it does not render evil for evil, but that in return for evil it renders good. It would not be charity if it did less. To pardon truly it is necessary to do more than pardon. Evil must be overcome by good; and after the example of God himself, where the offense has abounded, grace must much more abound. This is to say that pardoning, sparing, loving, all are secured in the person offended only when he prays for the offender. A. V.
1. Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: 2 the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resist- 3 eth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the 4 power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: for he is the min- ister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him 5 that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for con- 6 science’ sake. For for this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God’s ministers, attending 7 continually upon this very thing. Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom trib- ute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour. 8 Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled 9 the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neigh- 10 bour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of 11 the law. And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for 12 now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. 13 Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and 14 wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.
If, indeed, God’s kingdom were shining around us in its full beauty; if every evil thing were driven out of his temple; if we saw nothing but holy lives and happy, the fruits of his Spirit, truth, and love, and joy; then we might be less anxious for ourselves; our course would be far smoother. What evil thoughts would not be withered and die long ere they could ripen into action, if the very air which we breathed were of such keen and heavenly purity! It is because all this is not so that we have need of so much watchfulness; it is because the faults of every one of us make our brethren’s task harder; be- cause there is not one bad or careless person among us who is not a hindrance in his brother’s path, and does not oblige him to exert himself the more. Therefore, because the day is not bright, but overclouded, because it is but too like the night, and too many use it as the night for all works of darkness, let us take the more heed that we do not ourselves so mistake it; let us watch each of us the light within us, lest, indeed, we should wholly stumble; let us put on the Lord Jesus Christ. To put on Christ is a truer and fuller expression, by far, than if we had been told to put on truth, or holiness, or goodness. It in- cludes all these, with something more, that nothing but itself can give—the sense of safety, and joy unspeakable, in feeling ourselves sheltered in our Saviour’s arms, and taken even into himself. Assur- edly, if we put on the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall not make provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof. T. A.
2. For “damnation” read “condemnation”; punishment for that disobedience, not eternal perdi- tion, being meant. A.
1-7. It is conscientious subjection that is spoken of; free, willing, hearty; not forced or constrained. It is to proceed from respect to the authority enjoin- ing obedience, and not from a mere dread of the consequences of disobedience. W. S.—Christian- ity sees in the body politic not an arbitrary human invention; in the magistracy, not a mere slavish creature of the sovereign will of the people, but a divine ordinance for the administration of eternal justice, which punishes evil and rewards good; for upholding the majesty of law; for maintaining or- der and security both of person and of property; and for promoting the public weal. The state is moral society resting on law; the Church, the same resting on the gospel. The one is necessarily limited and national; the other, catholic and universal. The former looks to temporal welfare; the latter, to eternal. But each promotes and protects the other. As to the particular form of government for a state the apostles give no directions. As all power and authority come from God, so also does the power of the civil government, be it an absolute or a limited monarchy or a republic, be it an aristocracy or a democracy. In virtue of its elevation above the temporal and earthly, Christianity may exist under all forms of civil government, and will always favor that which most corresponds to the historical rela- tions and wants of a nation, and which is, therefore, relatively the best. Of course, however, in this point also, it tends steadily to improvement and to the highest possible perfection; to the abolition of hurtful laws and institutions and the introduction of good; to an organization under which the power is judiciously distributed, the rights of the individual as well as of the commonwealth best preserved, and the moral ends of the race most efficiently promoted and most surely attained. P. S.
Christianity refused to be mixed up with any political system, or to bind those who followed it down to any form of political union, as it had re- fused to bind them down to any particular form of religious union. Leaving itself perfectly free, it could therefore enter as a spirit of good into any form of government. All its fundamental ideas— the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of all men in Christ, the equality of all men before God, the individual responsibility of every human soul, the surrender of all things for others, the one necessity of salvation for all alike, emperor and peasant—are spiritual ideas which bear an easy translation into political ideas, and which, gathering strength, have proved the ruin of many tyrannies. S. A. B.— Above and beneath all civil constitutions—the foun- dation of their stability, the dome of their protec- tion, their corner-stone, their wall of defense, their genial and sheltering sky—is the religion and gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Virtue is loyalty. Good- ness is patriotism. The best citizenship is the best Christianship. The best legislator is the truest and wisest man. Character is the strength of the state. They are the friends, the ornaments, the defenders of the country and its constitution, who will not swerve from its three original, immortal ideas— Faith, Freedom, Fraternity. F. D. H.
5. The subjection here required is not absolute and unlimited. In obeying the constituted authorities—thus runs the exhortation—a man should, properly speaking, obey God only, whose minister the magistrate is, and whose sword he bears. And hence obedience to an earthly ruler must be measured and limited by the obligation to the heavenly. P. S.—The limits of every duty must be determined by its reasons, and the only ones assigned here, or that can be assigned for submission to civil authority, are its tendency to do good; wherever therefore this shall cease to be the case, submission becomes absurd, having no longer any rational view. But at what time this evil shall be judged to have arrived, or what remedy it may be proper to apply, Christianity does not decide, but leaves to be determined by an appeal to natural reason and right. R. Hall.—No command to do anything morally wrong can be binding; nor can any which transcends the rightful authority of the power whence it emanates. What that rightful authority is must be determined by the institutions and laws of the land, or from prescription and usage, or from the nature and design of the office with which the magistrate is invested. The right of deciding on all these points, and determining where the obligation to obedience ceases, and the duty of resistance begins, must, from the nature of the case, rest with the subject, and not with the ruler. The apostles and early Christians decided this for themselves, and did not leave the decision with the Jewish or Roman authorities. Like all other questions of duty, it is to be decided on our responsibility to God and our fellow-men. C. H.
8-10. The whole sum of the law is love: love to God and love to man; these two contain all, and the former of the two contains the latter; love to God is the only true principle and spring of all due love to man, and all love that begins there returns thither likewise and ends there. The engaging the whole mind and soul to the love of God does not engross it so that there should be no kind of love communicable to man; on the contrary, it is to refine it that it may flow forth the purer and better. All love should be once called in to God, to be sublimated and purified there, and then set in its right channel and motion, so as man be loved in him and for him; and so to love man is to love God, that love taking its rise from him and terminating in him; and in this circle is the proper motion of celestial divine love. L.
This love is exercised in obedience to the authority of God’s word. It is a principle, not merely a feeling; it is cultivated and exercised as a duty, not yielded to merely as a generous instinct; it is a submission to God’s command, not merely an indulgence of constitutional tenderness. J. A. J.—Remember that love fulfills obedience, and does not abolish it any more than faith abolishes the law; that he who loves obeys joyfully, but still obeys; that he obeys better than before, but still obeys. Nothing, no attainments of the spiritual life, however sublime, can abolish obedience; and the spiritual life can not be advancing when obedience is on the decline. The proof of progress is better obedience. A. V.—Love as obligatory is the law of our being. In substance, and as expressing his inmost nature, Love is the one imperative word uttered by God in the Bible. It is also the one imperative word uttered by Him through the constitution and conscience of man, and in the coincidence of these two utterances we find a perfect proof that both are from Him. Law and love! These are the two mightiest forces in the universe. Law is stern, majestic, and the fountain of all order. Love is mild, winning, the fountain of all rational spontaneity, that is, of the spontaneity that follows rational choice. Love without law is capricious, weak, mischievous; opposed to law, it is wicked. Law without love is unlovely. The highest harmony of the universe is in the love of a rational being that is coincident with the law of that being rationally affirmed; and the deepest possible jar and discord is from the love, persistent and utter, of such a being in opposition to his law. It is because there is in the Divine Being this harmony of law with love that He is perfect. It is because this harmony is required in the divine government that that is perfect, and no philosophy for the regulation of human conduct can be both vital and safe in which that same union is not consummated. M. H.
9. The term neighbor includes every creature of God that needeth a blessing and can be blessed. Thus doth Christianity set the heart of man to throbbing along with the heart of everlasting love, in behalf of all that wear his form, and circulate life currents filled by the same heavenly Father. Thus does it create a spirit in man which sends him abroad with both hands full of all that can bless and endow human existence. Under the gospel, man is not all inhumanity to man. Heart does meet heart; does warm and grieve at the call of sorrow and need; if another be burdened, feels itself the pressure; if he be delivered, exults in the emancipation. White.
11. Our salvation nearer. The best thoughts we can have about the future life are thoughts that make us better men now—more fit to live under the eye of God, and in daily intercourse with our neighbors, just where we are—kinder and purer at home, more just and honorable in business, more reverent and humble in prayer, more charitable in our judgments of each other. Unless we are very thoughtless indeed, there can not fail to be a strong and salutary influence breathing on us continually by remembering this: that we are so near, one day’s march nearer every night, to a world that is all love and all life, without selfishness and without death, and that world eternal. The prospect itself, if we realized it, would shed some new sanctity over the life we are living. F. D. H.
12. The night. A picture of the Christian’s present state. In comparison with other men he is in broad day; and so he is in comparison with his own former condition. But here the apostle is not thinking of other men, nor looking back to our own natural state: he is looking forward; he has a glorious eternity in view; and as he contemplates that, he feels that he and his fellow-believers are all still in darkness, that night with its shadows is still overspreading them. The day. Brightness and beauty and happiness are all connected in our minds with the word, and all the pleasant visions the word calls up in our minds are embodied and realized in heaven. Now this day, the apostle says, is near: “The night is far spent, the day is at hand.” He speaks like a man who has long felt himself benighted in the world, and who sees at last the morning breaking. “Now,” he says in the preceding verse, “is our salvation nearer than when we believed,” than when we first believed; time has brought it nearer. He looks on himself and his fellow-believers as standing on the very verge of God’s kingdom. C. B.
Holiness, under the name of light, is by the apostle spoken of as the Christian’s armor. Put on, saith he, the armor of light, in opposition to the works of darkness. Strange armor! that a man may see through. A good man’s armor is, that he needs none: his armor is an open breast. Likeness to God is armor of proof, that is, an imitation of him in his moral goodness, which holiness as a general name comprehends. A person truly like God is secure from any external violence, so far as that it shall never be able to invade his spirit. He is in spirit far raised above the tempestuous, stormy region, and converses where winds and clouds have no place. Howe.
13. It is a common saying that the night is without shame, and this is in a measure true; for men often do those things in the night which they fear to do in the day, lest their acts should be discovered and they brought to shame and punishment. Therefore the apostle says, Let us walk honestly as in the day. Luther.
14. What is the wedding garment? Some say it is the imputed righteousness of Christ, some that it is the imparted righteousness of Christ, others that it is holiness of character. I consider it to consist of all three together. “Putting on the Lord Jesus Christ” is possessing his righteousness imputed, his holiness imparted, and his example imitated. He first makes the robe, and then fits us to wear it. R. Hill.—Dress relates to the form or figure of the body, character to the form or figure of the soul—it is, in fact, the dress of the soul. On the ground of this analogy it is that the Scriptures so frequently make use of dress to signify what lies in character, and represent character, in one way or another, as being the dress of the soul. As character is the soul’s dress, and dress analogical to character, whatever has power to produce a character when received is represented as a dress to be put on. Thus Paul, conceiving Christ to be the soul’s new dress, or what is nowise different, its new character, says, “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ.” Christ is to be a complete wardrobe for us himself, and that by simply receiving his person we are to have the holy texture of his life upon us, and live in the infolding of his character. We must put on Christ himself, and none but him. We must put him on just as he is, wear him outside, walk in him, bear his reproach, glory in his beauty, call it good to die with him, so to be found in him, not having our own righteousness, but the righteousness that is of God by faith. Cover us in it, O thou Christ of God, and let our shame be hid eternally in thee. H. B.
Make not provision for the flesh. Once in Christ, your necessary care for this natural life will be regulated and moderated by the Spirit. And for all unlawful desires of the flesh you shall be rid of providing for these. Instead of all provision for the life of the flesh in that sense, there is another guest and another life for you now to wait on and furnish for. L.—When Christ is really put on, the world falls off, and the lusts of property, and fame, and power, and appetite, subside or fall away. The effect runs both ways under the great law of action and reaction—as the old man is put off that the new may be put on, so the new put on still further displaces the old. And so if there be any overmastering temptation which baffles you, and keeps turning you off in your endeavors, and boasting itself against you, here is your deliverance—raise no fight with it in your own will, as you always have done when you have failed, but simply turn yourself to Christ alone: let your soul be covered in by the power of his grace upon you. H. B.