The Expositor's Bible: The Epistle of St Paul to the RomansMoule, H. C. G. (Handley Carr Glyn)
Religion
The Expositor's Bible: The Epistle of St Paul to the Romans
Moule, H. C. G. (Handley Carr Glyn)
Bible. Romans -- Commentaries
As we review this rich field of the flowers, and of the gold, of
holiness, this now completed paragraph of epigrammatic precepts, some
leading and pervading principles emerge. We see first that the
sanctity of the Gospel is no hushed and cloistered "indifferentism."
It is a thing intended for the open field of human life; to be lived
out "before the sons of men." A strong positive element is in it. The
saint is to "_abominate_ the evil"; not only to deprecate it, and
deplore. He is to be energetically "_in earnest_." He is to "_glow_"
with the Spirit, and to "_rejoice_" in the hope of glory. He is to
take practical, provident pains to live not only aright, but
manifestly aright, in ways which "_all men_" can recognize. Again, his
life is to be essentially social. He is contemplated as one who meets
other lives at every turn, and he is never to forget or neglect his
relation to them. Particularly in the Christian Society, he is to
cherish the "family affection" of the Gospel; to defer to fellow
Christians in a generous humility; to share his means with the poor
among them; to welcome the strangers of them to his house. He is to
think it a sacred duty to enter into the joys and the sorrows round
him. He is to keep his sympathies open for despised people, and for
little matters. Then again, and most prominently after all, he is to
be ready to suffer, and to meet suffering with a spirit far greater
than that of only resignation. He is to bless his persecutor; he is to
serve his enemy in ways most practical and active; he is to conquer
him for Christ, in the power of a divine communion.
Thus, meanwhile, the life, so positive, so active in its effects, is
to be essentially all the while a passive, bearing, enduring, life.
Its strength is to spring not from the energies of nature, which may
or may not be vigorous in the man, but from an internal surrender to
the claim and government of his Lord. He has "presented himself to
God" (vi. 13); he has "presented his body, a living sacrifice"
(xii. 1). He has recognized, with a penitent wonder and joy, that he
is but the limb of a Body, and that his Head is the Lord. His thought
is now not for his personal rights, his individual exaltation, but for
the glory of his Head, for the fulfilment of the thought of his Head,
and for the health and wealth of the Body, as the great vehicle in the
world of the gracious will of the Head.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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