The Provision of the Good News
through whom we have received grace and apostleship (1:5a)
Paul here mentions two important provisions of the good news of God: conversion, which is by God’s grace, and vocation, which in Paul’s case was apostleship.
It is possible that Paul was speaking of the specific grace of apostleship, but it seems more probable that he was referring to, or at least including, the grace by which every believer comes into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ.
Grace is unmerited, unearned favor, in which a believer himself does not and cannot contribute anything of worth. “For by grace you have been saved through faith,” Paul explains in his Ephesian letter; “and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast” (Eph. 2:8–9). Grace is God’s loving mercy, through which He grants salvation as a gift to those who trust in His Son. When any person places his trust in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, God sovereignly breathes into that person His own divine life. Christians are alive spiritually because they have been born from above, created anew with the very life of God Himself.
A believer has no cause for self-congratulation, because he contributes nothing at all to his salvation. Human achievement has no place in the divine working of God’s saving grace. We are “justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:24), a redemption in which man’s work and man’s boasting are totally excluded (vv. 27–28).
Salvation does not come by baptism, by confirmation, by communion, by church membership, by church attendance, by keeping the Ten Commandments, by trying to live up to the Sermon on the Mount, by serving other people, or even by serving God. It does not come by being morally upright, respectable, and self-giving. Nor does it come by simply believing that there is a God or that Jesus Christ is His Son. Even the demons recognize such truths (see Mark 5:7; James 2:19). It comes only when a person repenting of sin receives by faith the gracious provision of forgiveness offered by God through the atoning work of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
The great preacher Donald Grey Barnhouse observed, “Love that gives upward is worship, love that goes outward is affection; love that stoops is grace” (Expositions of Bible Doctrines Taking the Epistle to the Romans as a Point of Departure, vol. 1 [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952], p. 72). In an unimaginable divine condescension, God looked down on sinful, fallen mankind and graciously offered His Son for its redemption (John 3:16–17).
The dying words of one ancient saint were, “Grace is the only thing that can make us like God. I might be dragged through heaven, earth, and hell and I would still be the same sinful, polluted wretch unless God Himself should cleanse me by His grace.”
Another provision of the good news of God is His calling believers into His service, which is a form of apostleship. Paul opens the epistle by speaking of himself, and he resumes his personal comments in verses 8–15. In verses 2–4 he speaks about Jesus Christ. But from the end of verse 4 through verse 7 he is speaking about believers in general and about those in Rome in particular. Paul had already mentioned his own calling and office as an apostle (v. 1), and it therefore seems reasonable to launch from this reference to his apostleship to discuss God’s divine calling and sending of all believers.
The Greek term apostolos, which normally is simply transliterated as apostle, has the basic meaning of “one who is sent” (cf. the discussion in chapter 1). God sovereignly chose thirteen men in the early church to the office of apostle, giving them unique divine authority to proclaim and miraculously authenticate the gospel. The writer of Hebrews even refers to Jesus Christ as an apostle (Heb. 3:1).
But every person who belongs to God through faith in Christ is an apostle in a more general sense of being sent by Him into the world as His messenger and witness. In an unofficial sense, anyone who is sent on a spiritual mission, anyone who represents the Savior and brings His good news of salvation, is an apostle.
Two otherwise unknown leaders in the early church, Andronicus and Junias, were referred to by Paul as being “outstanding among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me” (Rom. 16:7). Luke refers to Barnabas as an apostle (Acts 14:14). The term apostolos is also applied to Epaphroditus (“messenger,” Phil. 2:25) as well as to some unnamed workers in, or known by, the church in Corinth (“messengers,” 2 Cor. 8:23). But those men, godly as they were, did not have the office of apostleship as did Paul and the Twelve. Andronicus, Junias, Barnabas, and Epaphroditus were apostles only in the sense that every believer is an apostle, a called and sent ambassador of Jesus Christ.
Sometimes an athletically inept student will be put on a team out of sympathy or to fill a roster, but the coach will rarely, if ever, put him in a game. God does not work that way. Every person who comes to Him through His Son is put on the team and sent in to play the game, as it were. Everyone who is saved by God’s sovereign grace is also sovereignly called to apostleship. The Lord never provides conversion without commission. When by grace we “have been saved through faith,” Paul explains, it is not ourselves but “is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast.” But as he goes on to explain, when God saves us we thereby become “His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:8–10). Later in that same epistle Paul entreats believers “to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called” (4:1).
A victor at an ancient Greek Olympic game is said to have been asked, “Spartan, what will you gain by this victory?” He replied, “I, sir, shall have the honor to fight on the front line for my king.” That spirit should typify everyone for whom Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior.
After one of D. L. Moody’s sermons, a highly educated man came to him and said, “Excuse me, but you made eleven mistakes in your grammar tonight.” In a gracious rebuke Moody replied, “I probably did. My early education was very faulty. But I am using all the grammar that I know in the Master’s service. How about you?” On another occasion a man came up to Mr. Moody and said, “I don’t like your invitation. I don’t think it’s the right way to do it.” “I appreciate that,” Moody responded. “I’ve always been uncomfortable with it, too. I wish I knew a better way. What is your method of inviting people to Christ?” “I don’t have one,” the man replied. “Then I like mine better,” the evangelist said. Whatever our limitations may be, when God calls us by His grace, He also calls us to His service.
In reflecting on his ordination into the Presbyterian ministry, Barnhouse wrote:
The moderator of the Presbytery asked me questions, and I answered them. They told me to kneel down. Men came toward me, and one man was asked to make the prayer. I felt his hand come on my head, and then the hands of others, touching my head, and pressing down on his and the other hands. The ring of men closed in, and one man began to pray. It was a nice little prayer and had one pat little phrase in it, “Father, guard him with Thy love, guide him with Thine eye, and gird him with Thy power.” I kept thinking about those three verbs, guard, guide, gird. It seemed as foolish as performing a marriage ceremony upon two people who had been living together for a quarter of a century and who had had a family of children together. I knew that I had been ordained long since, and that the Hands that had been upon my head were Hands that had been pierced, and nailed to a cross. Years later the man that made the prayer that day signed a paper saying that he was opposed to the doctrine of the virgin birth, the doctrine of the deity of Jesus Christ, the doctrine of the substitutionary atonement, the doctrine of the miracles of Christ, and the doctrine of the inspiration of the Scriptures, as tests for ordination or a man’s good standing in the ministry. When I read his name on the list, I put my hand on the top of my head and smiled to myself, wondering how many dozen times I had had my hair cut since his unholy hands had touched me. And I had the profound consolation of knowing that the hand of the Lord Jesus Christ, wounded and torn because of my sins, had touched me and given me an apostleship which was from God and which was more important than any that men could approve by their little ceremonies. (Man’s Ruin: Romans 1:1–32 [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952], pp. 76–77. Used by permission.)
Dr. Barnhouse’s account reminds me of my own ordination. Before being approved, I was interviewed by a number of men who asked me all kinds of questions concerning such things as my call, my knowledge of Scripture, and my personal beliefs and moral standards. At the ordination service those men gathered around me and placed their hands on my head. Each man then prayed and later signed his name to the ordination certificate. The first name on the certificate was written considerably larger than the others. But not long afterward, that man who signed first and largest abandoned the ministry. He became involved in gross immorality, denied the virtue of the faith, and became a professor of humanistic psychology at a prominent secular university. Like Dr. Barnhouse, I give thanks to God that my ministry did not come from men but from Christ Himself.
The Proclamation and Purpose of the Good News
to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles, for His name’s sake, among whom you also are the called of Jesus Christ; (1:5b–6)
the proclamation
to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles, (1:5b)
Like Paul, every believer is called not only to salvation and to service but to witness for Christ in order to bring about the obedience of faith in others. Paul uses the phrase “obedience of faith” again at the end of the letter, saying that “the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past, but now is manifested, and by the Scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the eternal God, has been made known to all the nations, leading to obedience of faith” (Rom. 16:25–26).
A person who claims faith in Jesus Christ but whose pattern of life is utter disobedience to God’s Word has never been redeemed and is living a lie. Faith that does not manifest itself in obedient living is spurious and worthless (James 2:14–26). We are not saved in the least part by works, no matter how seemingly good; but as already noted, we are saved to good works. That is the very purpose of salvation as far as our earthly life is concerned (Eph. 2:10). The message of the gospel is to call people to the obedience of faith, which is here used as a synonym for salvation.
Although Paul does not use the definite article before faith in this passage, the idea is that of the faith, referring to the whole teaching of Scripture, especially the New Testament. It is what Jude refers to as “the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (v. 3). That faith is the Word of God, which is the only divinely-constituted authority of Christianity. Affirmation of that faith leads to the practical, lived-out faithfulness without which a professed faith is nothing more than dead and useless (James 2:17, 20). Genuine faith is obedient faith. To call men to the obedience of faith is to fulfill the Great Commission, to bring men to Jesus Christ and to the observance of everything He commands in His Word (Matt. 28:20).
It is not that faith plus obedience equals salvation but that obedient faith equals salvation. True faith is verified in obedience. Obedient faith proves itself true, whereas disobedient faith proves itself false. It is for having true faith, that is, obedient faith, that Paul goes on to commend the Roman believers. “I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all,” he says, “because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world” (Rom. 1:8). He gives a similar commendation at the end of the letter. To his beloved brothers and sisters in Christ, most of whom he had never met, he says, “The report of your obedience has reached to all; therefore I am rejoicing over you” (16:19). In the first instance Paul specifically commends their faith, and in the second he specifically commends their obedience. Together, faith and obedience manifest the inseparable two sides of the coin of salvation, which Paul here calls the obedience of faith.
God has many titles and names in Scripture, but in both testaments He is most frequently referred to as Lord, which speaks of His sovereign right to order and to rule all things and all people, and most especially His own people. To belong to God in a relationship of obedience is to recognize that salvation includes being in submission to His lordship. Scripture recognizes no other saving relationship to Him.
Some years ago, as I was riding with a professor at a well-known evangelical seminary, we happened to pass an unusually large liquor store. When I made a comment about it, my companion said it was one of a large chain of liquor stores in the city owned by a man that went to his church and was a regular attender of an adult Sunday school class. “As a matter of fact, he is in my discipleship group,” my friend said; “I meet with him every week.” “Doesn’t the kind of business he is in bother you?” I asked. “Oh, yes,” he said. “We talk about that frequently, but he feels that people who drink are going to buy their liquor somewhere and that it might as well be in his stores.” Taken aback, I asked, “Is the rest of his life in order?” He replied, “Well, he left his wife and is living with a young woman.” “And he still comes to church and discipleship class every week?” I asked in amazement. The professor sighed and said, “Yes, and you know, sometimes it’s hard for me to understand how a Christian can live like that.” I said, “Have you ever considered that he may not be a Christian at all?”
A theology that refuses to recognize the lordship of Jesus Christ for every believer is a theology that contradicts the very essence of biblical Christianity. “If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord,” Paul declares, “and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved; for with the heart man believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation” (Rom. 10:9–10). With equal clarity and unambiguity, Peter declared at Pentecost, “Let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ—this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:36). The heart of Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount is that faith without obedience is not saving faith, but is certain evidence that a person is following the wide and delusive road of the world that leads to destruction, rather than the narrow road of God that leads to eternal life (Matt. 7:13–14).
On the other hand, merely calling Jesus Lord, even while doing seemingly important work in His name, is worthless unless those works are done from faith, are done in accord with His Word, and are directed and empowered by His Holy Spirit. With sobering intensity, Jesus plainly declared that truth when He said, “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’ ” As He goes on to explain, the person who claims Him but lives in continual disobedience of His Word is building a religious house on sand, which will eventually wash away and leave him without God and without hope (Matt. 7:22–27). Without sanctification—that is, a life of holiness—“no one will see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14).
Paul’s unique calling was to the Gentiles (Acts 9:15; 22:21; Rom. 11:13; Gal. 1:16). It is likely that he preached the gospel during his three years in Arabia (Gal. 1:17), but he began his recorded ministry by preaching to Jews. Even when ministering in the basically Gentile regions of Asia Minor and Macedonia, he frequently began his work among Jews (see, e.g., Acts 13:14; 14:1; 16:13; 17:1; 18:2). As with Paul, the calling of every believer is to proclaim Jesus Christ to all men, Jew and Gentile, in the hope of bringing them to the obedience of faith.
the purpose
for His name’s sake, among whom you also are the called of Jesus Christ. (1:5c–6)
Although God gave His own Son to save the world (John 3:16) and does not wish for any person to perish (2 Pet. 3:9), it must be recognized that the primary purpose of the gospel is not for man’s sake but God’s, for His name’s sake. Man’s salvation is simply a by-product of God’s grace; its main focus is to display God’s glory.
The preacher (v. 1), the promise (v. 2), the Person (vv. 3–4), the provision (v. 5a), the proclamation (vv. 5b–6), and the privileges (v. 7) of the good news of God are all given for the express purpose of glorifying God. All of redemptive history focuses on the glory of God, and throughout eternity the accomplishments of His redemption will continue to be a memorial to His majesty, grace, and love.
Because of His gracious love for fallen and helpless mankind, salvation is of importance to God for man’s sake, but because of His own perfection it is infinitely more important to Him for His own sake. God is ultimately and totally committed to the exaltation of His own glory. That truth has always been anathema to the natural man, and in our day of rampant self-ism even within the church, it is also a stumbling block to many Christians. But man’s depraved perspective and standards not withstanding, the main issue of salvation is God’s glory, because He is perfectly worthy and it is that perfect worthiness to which sin is such an affront.
Paul declares that one day, “at the name of Jesus every knee [will] bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and that every tongue [will] confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:10–11). Even the divine truths and blessings that are given for His children’s own sake are first of all given “that the grace which is spreading to more and more people may cause the giving of thanks to abound to the glory of God” (2 Cor. 4:15).
When a person believes in Christ, he is saved; but more important than that, God is glorified, because the gift of salvation is entirely by His sovereign will and power. For the same reason, God is glorified when His people love His Son, when they acknowledge His assessment of their sin and their need for cleansing, when their plans become His plans, and when their thoughts become His thoughts. Believers live and exist for the glory of God.
The believers in Rome to whom Paul was writing were among those who had been brought to “the obedience of faith” (v. 5) and therefore were also the called of Jesus Christ. And, as has already been emphasized, the called of Jesus Christ, those who are true believers, are called not only to salvation but to obedience. And to be obedient to Christ includes bringing others to Him in faith and obedience.[1]
The Obedience of Faith
Romans 1:5
Through him and for his name’s sake, we received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith.
It is a puzzle to me that whenever I write about the lordship of Jesus Christ, as I did in the previous chapter, stressing that one must follow Jesus and submit to him to be a Christian, some people always object that an emphasis like this destroys the gospel. If Jesus must be Lord, then salvation cannot be by “simple” faith, they argue. If we insist that one must follow Christ, we must be mingling works with faith as a means of salvation, which is “another gospel.”
No matter that I show what true biblical faith is! No matter that I explain how obedience and faith both necessarily follow from regeneration!
I suppose that Paul had this problem, too, if for no other reason than that the human mind seems to work much the same way in all people. I believe Paul had these difficulties because of the way he develops his thoughts in the opening verses of Romans. In the Greek text the first seven verses of the book are one long sentence, not an unusual form for one writing in good Greek style. Nevertheless, there has been a natural and significant climax at the end of verse 4 in the words “Jesus Christ our Lord.” This is the point to which the earlier verses have been leading, and it would have been quite proper, as well as good Greek, if Paul had ended his sentence there. Why does he not do this? Why does he add the thoughts in verse 5 before the wrap-up to the introduction in verses 6 and 7? The answer is along the lines I am describing. The apostle has spoken of Jesus Christ as “Lord.” Now, knowing how people think when confronted with that idea, he feels the need to amplify his statement.
Must Jesus be Lord if one is to be saved by him? If he must, this will have an effect on the way we understand the gospel and obey Christ’s command to evangelize the world.
Disobedience and Obedience
The key words of verse 5 are those the New International Version translates as “to the obedience that comes from faith” (literally, “unto obedience of faith”). There are two ways this phrase can be interpreted. First, it can be interpreted as referring to the obedience which faith produces or in which it results. I think this is not the true meaning. But it is worth noting that, even if this is the correct interpretation, the point I have been making is still plain, since Paul would be saying that true biblical faith must produce obedience. If the “faith” one has does not lead to obedience, it is not the faith the Bible is talking about when it calls us to faith in Jesus Christ. It may be intellectual assent of a very high order. But it is not a living faith. It does not join us to Jesus Christ, and it will save no one.
Yet the case is even stronger than this, because a proper interpretation of the phrase is not “unto the obedience to which faith leads” (the first interpretation) but rather “unto obedience, the very nature of which is faith” (the second interpretation). Or, to turn it around, we could say, “faith, which is obedience.”
This is such an important point that I want to establish it a bit more fully before going on to show why it is important. The way I want to do this is to show that it is the view of the most important commentators. Let me cite a few, starting with the most recent and moving backwards.
1. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: “The Apostle says … ‘the obedience of faith’ in order to bring out this point—that he is talking about an obedience which consists in faith, or, if you like, an obedience of which faith is the central principle.”
2. John Murray: “It is … intelligible and suitable to take ‘faith’ as in apposition to ‘obedience’ and understand it as the obedience which consists in faith. Faith is regarded as an act of obedience, or commitment to the gospel of Christ.”
3. Charles Hodge: “The obedience of faith is that obedience which consists in faith, or of which faith is the controlling principle.”
4. Robert Haldane: “The gospel reforms those who believe it; but it would be presenting an imperfect view of the subject to say that it was given to reform the world. It was given that men might believe and be saved. The obedience, then, here referred to, signifies submission to the doctrine of the gospel.”
5. F. Godet: “The only possible meaning is: the obedience which consists of faith itself.”
6. Martin Luther (contrasting Paul’s demand with human arguments): “Paul here speaks of ‘obedience to the faith’ and not of obedience to such wisdom as first must be proved by arguments of reason and experience. It is not at all his intention to prove what he says, but he demands of his readers implicit trust in him as one having divine authority.”
7. John Calvin: “By stating the purpose of his call Paul again reminds the Romans of his office, as though he were saying, ‘It is my duty to discharge the responsibility entrusted to me, which is to preach the word. It is your responsibility to hear the word and wholly obey it, unless you want to make void the calling which the Lord has bestowed on me.’ We deduce from this that those who irreverently and contemptuously reject the preaching of the gospel, the design of which is to bring us into obedience to God, are stubbornly resisting the power of God and perverting the whole of his order.”
I have taken several pages to make this point because, as I said at the beginning, it is an extremely important matter. It is important because it affects how we understand the gospel and how we seek to obey Christ’s command to evangelize. How is it that most of today’s evangelism is conducted? It is true, is it not, that for the most part the gospel is offered to people as something that (in our opinion) is good for them and will make them happy but that they are at perfect liberty to refuse! “The Holy Spirit is a gentleman,” we are sometimes told. “He would never coerce anybody.” With a framework like this, sin becomes little more than bad choices and faith only means beginning to see the issues clearly.
What is missing in this contemporary approach is the recognition that sin primarily is disobedience and that God commands us to repent and repudiate it. As D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones says, “Sin is not just that which I do that is wrong and which makes me feel miserable afterwards … not just that which spoils my life and makes me feel miserable and unhappy … not just that thing which gets me down and which I would like to overcome.” It is that, but it is also much more. Primarily, sin is rebellion against God. “Sin is refusal to listen to the voice of God. Sin is a turning of your back upon God and doing what you think.” So, when the gospel is preached, it must be preached not merely as an invitation to experience life to the full or even to accept God’s invitation. It must be preached as a command. (This is why Paul is so concerned to stress his role as an apostle, as one called and commissioned to be God’s ambassador.) We are commanded to turn from our sinful disobedience to God and instead obey him by believing in and following the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior.
This is the way Paul himself preached the gospel, though we frequently overlook it because of our own weak methods. Do you remember how Paul concluded his great sermon to the Athenians? “In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed …” (Acts 17:30–31, italics mine). In God’s name, Paul commanded the Greeks to repent of their sin and turn to Jesus.
It is the same in Romans. In Romans 6:17 Paul summarizes the response of the Roman Christians to the gospel by saying, “Thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted” (italics mine, here and in the subsequent citations). In Romans 10 he argues that the Jews “did not submit to God’s righteousness” (v. 3); in verse 16 he says, “But they have not all obeyed the gospel …” (kjv). At the end of the letter the idea appears again in a great benediction: “Now to him who is able to establish you by my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all nations might believe and obey him—to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! Amen” (Rom. 16:25–27).
In my opinion, the weakness of much of our contemporary Christianity can be traced to a deficiency at precisely this point. By failing to present the gospel as a command to be obeyed we minimize sin, trivialize discipleship, rob God of his glory, and delude some into thinking that all is well with their souls when actually they are without Christ and are perishing.
Pelagius and Jonathan Edwards
But there may be an objection at this point. It comes from those who know theology and are aware that, according to Paul’s later teaching in Romans, everyone is so deeply ensnared by sin that even though the gospel may be preached to us, apart from the grace of God we are not able to repent and obey God’s commands. This was the point that bothered Pelagius and led to his deviant theology and the resulting clash with Saint Augustine. Pelagius felt that if we are commanded to do something, we must be able to do it. “Ought” implies “can.” But instead of throwing out the command (which is what most people seem to want to do today), Pelagius threw out the inability, arguing that we can turn from sin, believe on Christ, and pursue obedience in our own strength, entirely unaided by the Holy Spirit.
The problem here is that Pelagius was overlooking the nature of our inability, which he would have understood better had he paid more attention to the command for obedience. The inability of man in his fallen state is not a physical inability, as if God were demanding that a paralyzed person get up and walk to him. A person so impaired really would have an excuse for failing to do that, but that is not the right analogy. The inability we have is not a physical inability but a moral one. That is, we do not obey God, not because we cannot obey him physically, but because we will not obey God. It is this that makes the command to obey so important and our disobedience so reprehensible.
Let me give you one illustration. Jonathan Edwards, who is probably the greatest theologian America has produced, wrote his most impressive treatise on the “Freedom of the Will,” and at one point toward the end of the treatise he had this answer for those who think the biblical doctrines unreasonable:
Let common sense determine whether there be not a great difference between these two cases: the one, that of a man who has offended his prince, and is cast into prison; and after he has lain there a while, the king comes to him, calls him to come forth; and tells him, that if he will do so, and will fall down before him and humbly beg his pardon, he shall be forgiven, and set at liberty, and also be greatly enriched, and advanced to honor: the prisoner heartily repents of the folly and wickedness of his offense against his prince, is thoroughly disposed to abase himself, and accept the king’s offer; but is confined by strong walls, with gates of brass, and bars of iron. The other case is, that of a man who is of a very unreasonable spirit, of a haughty, ungrateful, willful disposition; and moreover, has been brought up in traitorous principles; and has his heart possessed with an extreme and inveterate enmity to his lawful sovereign; and for his rebellion is cast into prison, and lies long there, loaded with heavy chains, and in miserable circumstances. At length the compassionate prince comes to the prison, orders his chains to be knocked off, and his prison doors to be set wide open; calls to him and tells him, if he will come forth to him, and fall down before him, acknowledge that he has treated him unworthily, and ask his forgiveness; he shall be forgiven, set at liberty, and set in a place of great dignity and profit in his court. But he is so stout, and full of haughty malignity, that he cannot be willing to accept the offer; his rooted strong pride and malice have perfect power over him, and as it were bind him, by binding his heart: the opposition of his heart has the mastery over him, having an influence on his mind far superior to the king’s grace and condescension, and to all his kind offers and promises. Now, is it agreeable to common sense, to assert and stand to it, that there is no difference between these two cases, as to any worthiness of blame in the prisoners?
When we first come upon an illustration like that, our reaction is to say that it is not an accurate description of our case, that we are not like the stubborn prisoner. But that is precisely what the Bible teaches we are like. Consequently, it is important for the gospel to be presented to the unsaved as a command and to have it stressed that God will hold us accountable if we persist in sin and refuse to bow before our rightful Lord.
Apostle of God’s Grace
Yet, as I draw toward the end of this chapter, I must add that although the demand that we repent of sin and turn to the Lord Jesus Christ is a command, it is nevertheless a command that comes to us in the context of the gospel. And, remember, the gospel is not bad news; it is good news. Above all, it is the good news of God’s grace.
I suppose that is why the word grace appears in verse 5—for the first time in the letter. It will occur again; it occurs just two verses later, in verse 7. In fact, it will be found a total of twenty-two times in the course of the epistle. “Grace” is one of the great words of Romans and a wonderful concept. In my opinion, the word occurs here because even though Paul is stressing the Lordship of Christ and the necessity of obeying God in response to the demands of the gospel, at the same time he is also keenly aware that those who respond to the gospel do so only because God is already graciously at work in them and because the gospel is itself the means by which the unmerited favor of God toward us is made operative.
What is this “grace”? Grace is often defined as God’s favor toward the undeserving, but it is more than that. If we have understood Jonathan Edwards’s illustration of the stubborn, rebellious prisoner, we know that it is actually God’s favor toward those who deserve the precise opposite. What we deserve is hell. We do not even deserve a chance to hear the gospel, let alone experience the regenerating work of God within, by which we are enabled to turn from sin and obey Jesus. We deserve God’s wrath. We deserve his fierce condemnation. But instead of wrath, we find grace. Instead of condemnation, we find the One who in our place bore God’s judgment and now lives to rule over us.
I do not know what went through the mind of Paul as he wrote these words. I know only what I read in the text. But I suspect that Paul was thinking of his own experience of God’s grace as he mentions the matter of his apostleship again in verse 5, saying that it was through Christ that he “received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles.”
There is a passage in 1 Corinthians that gives a clue to what is going on. Paul had been writing of Christ’s resurrection appearances and had added that after appearing to James and all the other apostles, Jesus had appeared to him as to one “abnormally born.” Then he added, in words that were not demanded by the context but which undoubtedly flowed from Paul’s acute sense of God’s rich grace toward him, “For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect …” (1 Cor. 15:9–10).
Like all who have been truly converted, Paul could never forget what he had been apart from God’s grace.
He had been self-righteous.
He had been cruel.
He had been fighting against the goads of God in his conscience.
He had been trying to destroy God’s work by his persecution of the infant church.
But God had stopped him and had brought him to a right mind. Up to that point he had been disobeying God. But when Jesus revealed himself to him on the road to Damascus, the rebellious will of the future apostle to the Gentiles was broken and Paul became Jesus’ obedient servant and disciple. How could that be? How could one so rebellious be brought to his knees before Jesus? There is only one answer. It was the grace of God. Only the grace of God can produce such changes. Only a gracious God would want to.
Why is it that we so easily fall into either of two wrong emphases when we present the gospel? Either we present the gospel as something so easy and simplistic that it fails to deal with sin and does not really produce conversions. Or else we present a harsh gospel, forgetting that it is only the love of God and not the condemnation of the law that wins anybody.
And there is one more point to be made. It is only the gracious love of God that motivates us to be his ambassadors. We are not apostles, as Paul was, but we have a corresponding function. We are God’s witnesses in this world, and, like Paul, we are to take the gospel to the nations. What will motivate us to do that and will actually keep us at it when the going gets hard? There is only one thing: remembrance of the grace of God, which we have first received. Paul said this in 2 Corinthians: “For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.… All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Cor. 5:14–15, 18).[2]
5 Now the apostle returns to his responsibility to proclaim the good news (cf. v. 1). Two problems present themselves in v. 5, and they are somewhat related. Who is indicated by “we,” and how should one understand the phrase “all the Gentiles”? Clearly, in using “we” Paul cannot be including his readers, because they did not possess apostleship. He could be referring to other apostles, of whom the Roman believers must have heard, but this would be unexpected, and it is not amplified. Mention of the intended sphere of labor—“among all the Gentiles”—makes the limitation of the “we” to Paul (as a literary plural) natural, since the Gentiles constituted his special field of labor (cf. 15:16, 18, where the word “obey” corresponds to the word “obedience” in this passage). On the other hand, “all the Gentiles” (pasin tois ethnesin) can equally well be rendered “all the nations” or “all peoples” (cf. Mt 28:19). This would favor the wider reference of “we” to all the apostles, since Israel would be included as one of the peoples. It is difficult finally to decide this question. The mission of Paul in preaching the gospel is “for his name’s sake,” i.e., for the glory of Jesus Christ.
Paul’s apostleship is by the calling (cf. v. 1), and hence the grace, of God. “Grace and apostleship” are probably to be understood in the sense of “the gift of apostleship” (a hendiadys, the two words referring to one thing). “Grace” (charis, GK 5921), the unmerited favor of God, is a word of key importance to Paul since it captures the essence of the gospel.
The desired response to the gospel message is “the obedience of faith” (hypakoēn pisteōs, GK 5633, 4411), which probably means “the obedience that comes from faith.” It would be equally possible, however, to understand these words as an apposite genitive: “the obedience that is faith.” After all, Paul’s gospel calls preeminently for faith (cf., e.g., 10:9–11). Of course, it also calls for obedience, and for Paul the two are ultimately inseparable. (On obedience, see 15:18; 16:26; on faith, see 1:16–17; 10:17.)[3]
5 The mediation of Christ is something upon which the apostle will reflect again and again throughout this epistle. Here we find it for the first time. Christ is the person through whom the grace and apostleship received have been mediated. In using the plural “we received” it is not likely that he is referring to other apostles as well as to himself. Still less may we suppose that he is including other companions in labour, such as Timothy and Silvanus (cf. Phil. 1:1; 1 Thess. 1:1; 2 Thess. 1:1). These could not have been regarded as having received apostleship. The plural “we” could have been used as the “plural of category” when the apostle refers simply to himself. He lays stress upon his apostleship to the Gentiles in this context, and this singularity would appear to be required at this point. “Grace and apostleship” could mean the grace of apostleship. It is more likely, however, that “grace” is here the more general unmerited favour of God. The apostle was never forgetful of the grace and mercy by which he had been saved and called into the fellowship of Christ (cf. 1 Cor. 15:10; Gal. 1:15; 1 Tim. 1:13–16; 2 Tim. 1:9; Tit. 3:5–7). The grace exemplified in salvation was not, however, in Paul’s case to be conceived of apart from the apostolic office to which he had been separated. They were not separated in Paul’s conversion experience on the road to Damascus (cf. Acts 26:12–18), a fact reflected on in his epistles (cf. 15:15, 16; Gal. 1:15, 16; 1 Tim. 1:12–16). This is an adequate reason why both the generic and the specific should be so closely conjoined in this instance (cf. 1 Cor. 15:10).
The purpose for which he received grace and apostleship is stated to be “unto obedience of faith among all the nations”. “Obedience of faith” could mean “obedience to faith” (cf. Acts 6:7; 2 Cor. 10:5; 1 Pet. 1:22). If “faith” were understood in the objective sense of the object or content of faith, the truth believed, this would provide an admirably suitable interpretation and would be equivalent to saying “obedience to the gospel” (cf. 10:16; 2 Thess. 1:8; 3:14). But it is difficult to suppose that “faith” is used here in the sense of the truth of the gospel. It is rather the subjective act of faith in response to the gospel. And though it is not impossible to think of obedience to faith as the commitment of oneself to what is involved in the act of faith, yet it is much more intelligible and suitable to take “faith” as in apposition to “obedience” and understand it as the obedience which consists in faith. Faith is regarded as an act of obedience, of commitment to the gospel of Christ. Hence the implications of this expression “obedience of faith” are far-reaching. For the faith which the apostleship was intended to promote was not an evanescent act of emotion but the commitment of wholehearted devotion to Christ and to the truth of his gospel. It is to such faith that all nations are called.
Whether “all the nations” is to be understood as comprising Jews and Gentiles or, more restrictively, only the Gentile nations is a question on which it is impossible to be decisive. The same difficulty appears in 16:26 and perhaps also in 15:18. Most frequently in Paul’s letters “nations” is used of the Gentiles as distinguished from the Jews (cf. 2:14, 24; 3:29; 9:24, 30; 11:11; 11:25; 15:9, 10, 11, 12, 16, 27; 1 Cor. 1:23; 5:1). Paul is thinking here of his own apostleship and since he is the apostle of the Gentiles and glories in that fact (11:13; cf. Acts 26:17, 18; Gal. 1:16; 2:7–9) there is much more to be said in favour of the view that here the Gentile nations are in view. As the apostle of the Gentiles his office is directed specifically to the promotion of the faith of the gospel among the Gentile nations (cf. 1:13).
“For his name’s sake.” This should preferably be taken with the design stated in the preceding words—it is for Christ’s sake that the obedience of faith is to be promoted. It is well to note the orientation provided by this addition. It is not the advantage of the nations that is paramount in the promotion of the gospel but the honour and glory of Christ. And the ambassador of Christ must have his own design in promoting the gospel oriented to this paramount concern—his subjective design must reflect God’s own antecedent and objective design.[4]
5 Paul’s description of himself, interrupted by the theologically loaded excursus about the gospel to which he has been dedicated (vv. 2–4), continues in this verse with an indication of the purpose of his apostolic call. “Jesus Christ our Lord” (v. 4b) is the mediator of this apostleship. Paul may use the plural “we received”66 because he includes other Christians as recipients of grace or because he includes his fellow apostles.68 But it is better, since the description of mission in the rest of the verse is so typical of Paul’s conception of his own call, to view the plural as editorial. What Paul has received is “grace and apostleship.”70 Paul may have in view two separate things, but it is more likely that the second term explains the first: Paul has received the special gift of being an apostle.72
Paul then draws attention to three aspects of his apostleship in prepositional phrases. First, Paul’s purpose in his apostolic ministry is to bring about74 “obedience of faith.” This phrase is unique to Romans, occurring only here and in 16:26, as a kind of bracketing device. Scholars debate the exact relationship of these two words, which in Greek are in a genitive construction. Many think that Paul intends to present faith as the basis for, or motivating force of, obedience: “obedience that springs from faith.”77 This rendering places the emphasis on postconversion commitment: the obedience of the Christian that is to follow and be the fruit of faith. The other major option is to take “faith” as a definition of “obedience”: “the obedience which is faith.”79 In support of this last interpretation can be mentioned the numerous places where obedience and faith occur in parallel statements, as well as those instances where Paul speaks of “obeying” the gospel.81 Moreover, Paul may deploy the phrase for polemical purposes, defining the obedience that characterizes Christians as faith, in distinction from the Torah adherence that the Jewish faith demands. However, this view, by collapsing “obedience” into faith, gives insufficient emphasis to this part of Paul’s ministry. The former view has the opposite problem: by effectively putting faith into a subordinate position, it may downplay the priority of evangelism in Paul’s apostleship. Paul saw his task as calling men and women to submission to the lordship of Christ (vv. 4b and 7b), a submission that began with conversion but which was to continue in a deepening, lifelong commitment. This obedience to Christ as Lord is always closely related to faith, both as an initial, decisive step of faith and as a continuing “faith” relationship with Christ. In light of this, we understand the words “obedience” and “faith” to be mutually interpreting: obedience always involves faith, and faith always involves obedience. However, this does not mean that the two terms should be equated, or that their semantic fields overlap, as many recent interpreters contend, stressing the holistic nature of the relevant Hebrew (’ĕmûnâ) and Greek (pistis) words. Paul maintains a semantic distinction between faith, on the one hand, and obedience, or “works,” on the other (see our notes on 3:28). Faith and obedience should not be equated, compartmentalized, or made into separate stages of Christian experience. Paul called men and women to a faith that was always inseparable from obedience—for the Savior in whom we believe is nothing less than our Lord—and to an obedience that could never be divorced from faith—for we can obey Jesus as Lord only when we have given ourselves to him in faith. As Karl Barth puts it, “Faith is not obedience, but as obedience is not obedience without faith, faith is not faith without obedience. They belong together, as do thunder and lightning in a thunderstorm.” Viewed in this light, the phrase captures the full dimension of Paul’s apostolic task, a task that was not confined to initial evangelization but that included also the building up and firm establishment of churches.
The second prepositional phrase specifies the arena of Paul’s apostolic labors: “among all the Gentiles [ethnesin].” The word ethnē could mean “nations” in a strictly geographical sense, but this would run contrary to the semantic focus of the term in Paul when it is used of the sphere of his apostolic work.88 Paul’s call was not so much to minister in many different nations as it was to minister to Gentiles in distinction from Jews.
The third modifier of “grace and apostleship” is “for the sake of his name.” The phrase expresses the ultimate focus of Paul’s ministry: the name of Jesus his Lord. As generally in Scripture, “name” connotes the person in his or her true character and significance. Ultimately, Paul ministers not for personal gain or even the benefit of his converts, but for the glory and benefit of Jesus Christ his Lord.[5]
[1] MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (1991). Romans (Vol. 1, pp. 20–27). Moody Press.
[2] Boice, J. M. (1991–). Romans: Justification by Faith (Vol. 1, pp. 53–60). Baker Book House.
[3] Harrison, E. F., & Hagner, D. A. (2008). Romans. In T. Longman III &. Garland, David E. (Ed.), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Romans–Galatians (Revised Edition) (Vol. 11, p. 37). Zondervan.
[4] Murray, J. (1968). The Epistle to the Romans (Vol. 1, pp. 12–14). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
[5] Moo, D. J. (2018). The Letter to the Romans (N. B. Stonehouse, F. F. Bruce, G. D. Fee, & J. B. Green, Eds.; Second Edition, pp. 49–52). William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
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