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sinner, like the Gentile world, still held to trial?

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8. This verse contains the reply to the question in the seventh. The apostle seems to interrupt the caviller, and bring him on a sudden to consider the extreme to which he had gone; as if the apostle had said, And not rather say (as we are slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say), Let us do evil that good may come! Shall we say that? The original may be variously rendered thus, And shall we say (as ... some affirm that we say), that we may do evil that good may come ? or thus, And, let us not do (as... some affirm we say we may do) evil that good may come. We be slanderously reported, etc. Doubtless some of Paul's opponents had made such an affirmation concerning him, abusing perhaps some of his avowed sentiments, and drawing from them unauthorized inferences. The sentiment which occurs in this epistle, 5: 20, Where sin abounded grace did much more abound, may exemplify the class of thoughts which his adversaries thus abused. Whose damnation is just. This is affirmed of those who act on the principle of doing evil that good may come; not of those who reviled the apostle. Those who act thus, he solemnly affirms, will meet with a righteous condemnation.

9-18. Having shown what advantage the Jew had over the Gentile, and disposed of the questionings which a Jew would suggest in opposition to the sentiment that he, like

any sinner, was exposed to the wrath of God, the apostle now puts directly the question, whether Jews were better than Gentiles, as to the fact of being sinners. This was, in truth, the point to which he had been steadily looking. He denies that Jews are, at all, better than Gentiles in this respect: they are both under sin, as he had already, in 1: 18-32. 2: 1-29, charged on them. His charge, he proceeds to show, is in harmony with the Jewish scriptures themselves. - This argument from the Jewish scriptures, doubtless, had special reference to the case of the Jews, since no one had doubts whether the Gentiles were sinners, while yet the passages speak in general terms, and are evidently produced in support of the charge that Jews and Gentiles are all under sin.

9. What then, etc. What are we to conclude respecting the Jews? Are we better than the Gentiles as to the fact of being sinners? Not at all: the Jews, as well as the Gentiles, are sinners and exposed to the penalty of sin. For we have before proved; more correctly, We have before brought the charge.

10-18. As it is written, etc. The apostle now produces passages from the Old Testament fortifying the charge which he had made; Ps. 14: 1-3. Ps. 5: 9. Ps. 140: 3. Ps. 10: 7. Is. 59: 7, 8. Ps. 36: 1.| They are together become unprofitable; a mild form of saying, They are abominable, fit only to be rejected. Their throat is an open sepulchre. They send forth moral

sin.

defilement, as an opened tomb emits noisomeness. As in the case of the Gentiles, so here, the apostle's language does not require, for its verification, that every Jew should have been guilty of each of these kinds of sin. It is enough, that the Jewish world could be thus described; that some committed one class of sins and others another, while no individual was able to escape from the charge of being a sinner: the more tender any one's conscience and the clearer his understanding of the law of God, the more ready would he be to acknowledge himself a sinner.

19. Having shown the sinfulness of both Jews and Gentiles, the apostle states anew the principle, which he had already exhibited, in 2: 1116, concerning the condemnation of sinners and the award which will be measured out to them; namely, that these will be regulated by their possession, or their lack, of the written law of God.-Now we know that what things soever, etc. It is a settled point with us, that the law is of force to those who are under it, those who have it. Those who have the written law of God will be judged by it; those who have it not will not be judged by it: it does not speak to them. That every mouth may be stopped, etc.; so that every sinner may feel the justice of his doom, and the whole world, Jewish and Gentile, being sinners, may be adjudged

guilty in the sight of God; guilty, severally, according to a just estimate of advantages, and of disadvantages, for knowing the will of God.

20. Therefore by the deeds of the law, etc. Since all men, those under the law as well as others, are sinners, it follows that no man can be justified, or treated as righteous, by deeds of the law: all hope, that any human being ban be justified by deeds of the law, is cut off; for by the law is the knowledge of sin; the law is efficacious only in awakening a sense of sinfulness in those who possess the law. The law of God making known his will leads to the conviction that we are transgressors. Thus the possibility of being justified by the law is absolutely negatived. As the apostle has Jews particularly in his mind, the law is to be taken in its whole extent, both ceremonial and moral, for to a Jew the distinction between the moral law and the ceremonial was of no account. Judaism, or the Mosaic religion, consisted of the entire code of divine prescriptions given through Moses, relative to ritual services as well as to the affections of the heart; and the outward was regarded by Jews in general as equally important, at least, with the inward, since the whole rested on divine command. Every precept of the law was a demand for pious obedience, and every compliance with

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the law was held as an act of obedience to a divine command. The performance of a required ceremony was, in a Jew's esteem, a pious act, an instance of obedience to God, as well as any personal, or social, virtue. The apostle, then, covers the whole ground; he presents, also, a conclusion, which is as wide spreading as law itself, in reference to the human family.

21-26. The apostle now asserts that while justification cannot result from the law, since the law produces only the consciousness of sin, God has, apart from the law, made known a kind of righteousness which he accepts for men's justification. The essential principle of this righteousness is faith in Jesus Christ: this righteousness is for those who believe in Christ, their faith in him being put to their account as righteousness this righteousness is for all who believe, whether Jews or Gentiles, since there is no difference as to the ground of their justification in the sight of God; for both Jews and Gentiles are sinners and can be justified only in a gratuitous way, by the grace, or favor, of God. Christ, in whom the faith which God accepts as righteousness is reposed, has by his expiatory death made manifest the righteousness of God's character, so that he is seen to be righteous while he accepts, and regards as righteous, the believer in Christ.

21. But now. These words are here not significant of time, but are merely a formula of transition to the contrast which the apostle is about to present. The righteousness of God; a righteousness which God has appointed and will accept for man's justification. It is called the righteousness of God, also, as being distinguished from a man's own righteousness, that is, such as would be his,

had he obeyed the law. It also proceeds from God, both because by his appointment, faith is put to the believer's account and because faith and the disposition connected with it result from a divine influence on man's heart. Without the law; aside from the law, on a different ground from that which the law can present, the law being set aside as a ground for justification and contributing nothing to that result. || Being witnessed, etc.; being testified of in the Old Testament. In 4: 1-8 the apostle produces from that book instances of a righteousness not consisting in actual obedience to the law. Compare the quotation in 1: 17.— When the apostle said in verse 20, By the law is the knowledge of sin, he did not express a sentiment in opposition to that which he affirms in this verse, since the word law is not there employed in the wide sense of the expression law and prophets. He there referred simply to the effect of the law of God on the human conscience and to the certainty that men cannot obtain justification through it. In the present passage, he affirms that even the Old Testament contains proofs of a righteousness which does not consist in obedience to the law, but which, notwithstanding, can be put to a man's account for his justification and secure for him acceptance with God.

22. By faith of Jesus Christ. Faith in Christ is the medium through which a person is brought into this state of justification, that faith being put to his account, or reckoned to him, as righteousness; SO that, through it, he is as really accepted of God as if he had not been a sinner. || Unto all and upon all, etc. There is but little, if any, difference in meaning between these two prepositions, unto and upon, as here used.

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inal give a different punctuation and connect the words in his blood with the word propitiation; thus, a propitiation in, that is, by, his blood. No material difference in the thought, however, is produced by this alteration for in either mode of reading the passage, the death of Christ is represented as necessary and available for propitiation, and faith in Christ is represented as the medium for receiving the benefits of his propitiatory death. To declare his righteousness; literally, for showing forth his own righteousness, or, for making it manifest. -The word declare is here used, as in 1: 4, in the old sense of making clear, or evident; as it is used in Matt. 13: 36 and 15: 15. For the remission of sins that are past; literally, on account of the remission, that is, the passing by, without merited punishment, of sins committed in former ages, namely, before the coming of Christ. The word here translated remission is not the word which signifies forgiveness in the full sense; it properly means passing by without deserved retribution, declining to punish. The idea, here conveyed by the apostle, is similar to that in Acts 17: 30, where God is said to have winked at sins committed in the times of comparative ignorance, and in Acts 14: 16, where he is said to have suffered all nations to walk in their own ways, without giving full expression to his displeasure at their sins. The sins of former ages were passed by without merited punishment through the divine forbearance, not through indifference on the part of God. Since, however, God had shown such forbearance in declining to punish the sins of men, his forbearance might be misunderstood, and the opinion be cherished that he was regardless of men's acts and would not be found strictly just in

his moral administration. But the death of Christ, as a means of propitiation, would effectually correct this error: it would fully display the justice of God and set all his former forbearance in its true light. — In order to present the apostle's thought, the passage may be read in the following manner:- For showing forth his own righteousness on account of the passing by, through the forbearance of God, of sins formerly committed. The apostle's remark is applicable to modern times; for the righteousness of God might be called in question by reason of his forbearing to inflict merited punishment in his providential dealings; but his righteousness is fully vindicated by the death of Christ for man's redemption.

26. To declare, I say, at this time, etc.; a repetition of the thought that the death of Christ manifested the righteousness of God, with the additional thought that this is done now, at the present time, that is, since Christ has come and submitted to death, in contrast with the former ages alluded to in the preceding verse. A complete manifestation of the righteous character of God, as the supreme Ruler, was reserved for the Messiah's advent and death. || That he might be just, etc. The ultimate purpose of the death of Christ is now stated, at least so far as men's justification is concerned; namely, that God might be seen to be perfectly righteous while even justifying men, that is, accepting them as if righteous, though sinners, on their becoming believers in Jesus.

The death of Christ should be regarded not so much in the light of an external extent, as in the ideas it represents, or the views which it furnishes of the character and government of God. We are not to suppose that God takes pleasure in suf