《Coke’s Commentary on the Holy Bible – Romans》(Thomas Coke)

Commentator

Thomas Coke (9 September 1747 - 2 May 1814) was the first Methodist Bishop and is known as the Father of Methodist Missions.

Born in Brecon, south Wales, his father was a well-to-do apothecary. Coke, who was only 5 foot and 1 inch tall and prone to being overweight, read Jurisprudence at Jesus College, Oxford, which has a strong Welsh tradition, graduating Bachelor of Arts, then Master of Arts in 1770, and Doctor of Civil Law in 1775. On returning to Brecon he served as Mayor in 1772.

A Commentary on the Holy Bible, six complete volumes (1801-1803), is an indepth look at the Old and New Testaments, with the following print volumes combined into the commentary here:

  • Volume 1, Genesis to Deuteronomy, 1801.
  • Volume 2, Joshua to Job, 1801.
  • Volume 3, Psalms to Isaiah, 1802.
  • Volume 4, Jeremiah to Malachi, 1803.
  • Volume 5, Matthew to Acts, 1803.
  • Volume 6, Romans to Revelation, 1803.

His numerous publications included Extracts of the Journals of the Rev. Dr. Coke's Five Visits to America (London, 1793); a life of John Wesley (1792), prepared in collaboration with Henry Mooro; A History of the West Indies (3 vols., Liverpool, 1808-11).

Introduction

GENERAL REFLECTIONS UPON SAINT PAUL'S EPISTLES.

THE Epistles of St. Paul form so important a part of the Holy Scriptures, as to be in themselves almost sufficient, under divine grace, to impart a clear and distinct knowledge of all the truths necessary to salvation, and to form our hearts to devotion. They exhibit more particularly an intimate acquaintance with the books of the Old Testament, and of the mysteries of the ancient dispensation: and the proofs drawn from that sacred source, for the confirmation and illustration of the doctrines of the Gospel, are so very numerous, and are set in so clear a light, that we cannot fail to admire the conformity of the New Testament with the Old, and fully to acknowledge the inspiration of the former, when already satisfied of the divinity of the latter. But the more grandeur and sublimity we see in the proofs and reasonings of St. Paul, the greater difficulty does the understanding sometimes find in keeping pace with him; and the profundity of these matters, great and difficult in themselves, occasions a degree of obscurity, upon a slight perusal of the Epistles of this Apostle, which however clears away by degrees, if we continue to read with attention and in a spirit of faith. This is the remark of St. Peter in his Second General Epistle: Account that the long-suffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given unto him, hath written unto you; as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction; 2 Peter 3:15; 2 Peter 3:15. It appears from the testimony of St. Peter, that he possessed a high opinion of the deep knowledge of St. Paul; and that what is hard to be understood in his Epistles arises from the nature of the subjects themselves, and not from the manner in which they are treated. Neither are these difficulties found throughout the whole of any one Epistle, so as to render it unintelligible to the understanding of any person who seeks solely for instruction and consolation: they occur only in a few places, where the subject is not susceptible of the same clearness as in all the rest: and here the profundity, rather than the obscurity, ought to humble our conceit of ourselves, and awaken our attention and zeal in the perusal of these incomparable Epistles. According to St. Peter, none but minds full of ignorance or of prejudice, or wholly given up to the world, can fail of edification in reading them. But St. Paul tells us himself, (Titus 1:15.) that unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled, and unbelieving, is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience are defiled. Even those who envied him, and were jealous of the high esteem in which he was held by all the churches, and who laboured with all their might to lessen his reputation, dared not attack his Epistles, nor attempt, on any pretence of obscurity, to prevent Christians from reading them. They acknowledged them to be weighty and powerful, 2 Corinthians 10:10, two words which convey a high eulogium: the first shews that their subject is grand and important; and the second, that it is handled with a force of understanding and strength of reasoning capable, through grace, of convincing the most obsti

We have fourteen Epistles by this Apostle, including that to the Hebrews, which, though not bearing his name, is certainly his, as we shall shew when we come to that excellent piece. As it is of little importance to the edification of the church, in what order these Epistles are placed in the collection which has been made of them, much less attention has been paid to the order of time in which they were written, than to the arrangement of the subjects which they contain. (See the Introduction to the Epistle to the Romans.) Thus the Epistle to the Romans has always been placed first, on account of its excellence, which has ever caused it most justly to be regarded as one of the noblest productions of inspiration, and most useful to the church of Christ.

THE EPISTLE OF PAUL THE APOSTLE TO THE ROMANS.

PREFACE.

WHILE St. Paul was labouring with indefatigable application and zeal in the conversion of the people in most of the provinces of Asia, and throughout all Greece, the church at Rome became daily celebrated on account of the purity of its faith, and the progress made by the Gospel in that capital of the world. Romans 1. His joy at seeing the kingdom of God strengthening itself in a city which then gave laws to the whole earth, and his wish to contribute all his zeal and knowledge tothe same end, had often made St. Paul form a design of going to Rome, thence to visit all Italy, and to pass on into Spain; chap. Romans 15:23-24. But Providence having hitherto prevented him, and he being desirous to give the Romans a testimony of his apostolic zeal, he addressed to them from Corinth, about four years previous to his first imprisonment,this excellent Epistle, in which he has collected together, with the divinest art, the most profound doctrines of the Christian religion.

He treats expressly and at length of our justification before God, and of the calling of the Gentiles, as connected with the rejection of the Jews: subjects high and momentous in themselves, and which required from the Apostles every exertion to place them in a clear point of view, both to confirm Christians in their faith, and, if possible, to withdraw the Jews from their erroneous ideas on those two important points. With regard to the first, it is certain, that the Jews in general, little instructed in the intentionor end of the law, and the meaning of the prophets, knew no other means of being justified before God, than by keepingthe law of Moses. This, then, was the grand error, against which St. Paul had to contend. And, to do this with the greater effect, and at the same time in a most methodical way, he first shews that all men are sinners, and consequently under a curse; this he begins to lay down from the 17th verse of the first chapter; he then proceeds to prove, that the Gentiles are not only sinners, but deserving of God's severest judgments. After which he comes immediately to the Jews, and shews, in the second chapter, and in the third, as far as the 19th verse, that their condition in this respect is very little different from that of the Gentiles; that they are all, like them, sinners, and merit the condemnation which the very law that they have received, and in which they pride themselves, denounces against the guilty. And hence he draws this evident inference, that by the deeds of the law, or by his own righteousness, there shall no flesh be justified; chap. Romans 3:10 so that, either no man can be justified and saved, or there must be some other means of justification besides that of works, or the personal righteousness of sinful man. Now, as we cannot affirm the former position without injuring the mercy of God, and annihilating the covenant which he had made with mankind in Adam through the seed of the woman, we must conclude that God, in his word, has opened a real source of justification and salvation for the faithful. This source is, the righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; chap. Romans 3:21-22. And because this righteousness is a spontaneous favour of God towards man, to which thesinner among the Jews has no more right than the sinner among the Gentiles, the Apostle proves that God has imparted it to Jews and Gentiles indifferently, and that both are justified by faith in Christ, the author and principle of that righteousness.

Herein St. Paul taught two things which gave offence to the Jews: first, that the uncircumcised Gentile was justified by the same means as the circumcised Jew; and secondly, that the Jew who was under the yoke of the law could only be justified by grace: but he clears up these difficulties in the following chapter, which is the fourth. The first he explains by the example of Abraham, whose faith was counted to him for righteousness, before he had yet received circumcision; and the second, by the express declaration of David, who makes the blessedness of man in general (and consequently of the Jews, of which he was one) to consist in the grace of God, who has provided a propitiation for their sins, which conceals them from the eyes of his justice; and St. Paul had already said, chap. Romans 3:24-25 that this propitiation set forth by God was Jesus Christ. The remainder of the chapter is employed in establishing the same truth.

The fifth chapter contains an excellent parallel between Christ and Adam, tending to shew that sin and condemnation flow from Adam unto all mankind, and that justification flows equally from Jesus Christ.

The sixth chapter replies to an objection against the doctrine of grace and justification, through faith in a Mediator: the objection is, that we have only to follow our own inclinations, and the vicious bent of our nature, without confining ourselves to practise the duties set forth in the law, since we are not to be justified by fulfilling thelaw.Thisobjectioncontainedsomethingspecious,especiallyformindsprejudiced against the Gospel, and eager to blacken it by the vilest imputations: but the Apostle defends it against this envenomed dart; and throughout this chapter he shews, that justification by faith in Christ, and the sanctification or holy life of the believer, are things inseparable.

But because the Jews had too high an opinion of themselves, and of the importance of the law, and falsely conceived that a man's righteousness was from the law, St. Paul in the seventh chapter opposes these phantoms raised by self-love, and the illusions of the Jews upon the subject of the law of Moses,by shewing throughout this chapter, and to the 16th verse of the following, that our sanctification, as well as justification, proceeds from the Lord Jesus Christ, and is wrought by the Spirit of grace. The rest of the eighth chapter, which is one of the finest and richest in all Holy Writ, is taken up indescribing the happiness and glory to which sanctification joined with justification leads; and here St. Paul concludes the explanation of the first point that he had proposed in this Epistle; which was, justification by faith.

He now comes to the second point, the rejection of the Jews, and the calling of the Gentiles into the peculiar covenant of the Messiah, chap. 9:; and, because the subject was odious to the Jews (Acts 22:22.) and since St. Paul, who was particularly and emphatically called the Apostle of the Gentiles, was supposed by the Jews not to be well-affected towards their nation, he endeavours, from the beginning of this chapter, to do away these unjust suspicions, by the strongest assurances of his zeal for that people; so far indeed, that if it would ensure their salvation, he would subject himself to a curse. But, because the error of the Jews in this matter arose, on the one hand, from an opinion which they entertained, that, as God had once honoured them by his alliance, they had thereby gained a perpetual title, an unalienable right; and on the other, that, as God had in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways, Acts 14:16 there was no probability that he would hereafter alter his conduct in regard to them;—St. Paul in this chapter treats generally upon election and reprobation, as they relate to nations, and to the peculiar privileges of thedifferentdispensations;shewingbytwowell-knownexamplesinthefamilieseven of the patriarchs, the first of Isaac and Ishmael, the other of Jacob and Esau, that God is free to bestow his gifts and privileges as he pleases.

Towards the end of this chapter, and in the following, he shews the Jews, that their dire misfortune arose from their pride, obstinacy, and wilful blindness in not understanding that the law was not given them fortheir justification, but that its intent was, to lead them to Jesus Christ; nevertheless, on the contrary, they had rejected him, and adhered obstinately to the law: whereas the Gentiles, having no such prejudices, received Christ when he was declared to them, and embraced his Gospel with joy.

The eleventh chapter continues to treat of the fall and rejection of the Jews; but it concludes with assurances, founded upon the oracles of the ancient prophets, that they should one day be recalled into the church.

The twelfth and following chapters are filled with serious and powerful lessons of morality, exhorting Christians to edify one another in their whole life and conduct. For it is St. Paul's method to begin his Epistles with doctrine, and to conclude them with instruction; that we may learn to hold the mystery of faith in a pure conscience,1 Timothy 3:9.

After what has been said on the design and execution of this Epistle, it will not be difficult to comprehend in what sense we are to take the words law, faith, justification, and some others which often occur in the argument.

The law then is to be generally, though not always, taken for the Mosaic dispensation; and the works of the law are those performed in execution of God's ordinances, whether moral or ceremonial. See the Critical Notes.

Faith is a true and right knowledge of Jesus Christ, a profound sentiment of the soul, embracing him as its Saviour and Redeemer.

As for the term justification, it can be no otherwise understood, in a work treating of culprits, of a law, a tribunal, a judge, an accuser, a surety, a redemption (as these are all treated of), than in the common acceptation of the bar, of pardon, or of discharging a criminal, through special favour, from the punishment that he had merited. And hence, justification and remission of sins, are indiscriminately used in the fourth chapter as synonymous terms, meaning absolutely the same thing in this controversy; and for the same reason St. Paul, in chap. 6: distinguishes justification from sanctification, which he needed not to have done, if justification had meant the same thing as making holy.

INTRODUCTION TO THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS.

THE sum and substance of the Christian religion is contained in the history of the life and death, the doctrine and discourses of our Lord in the four Gospels. The epistolary writings of the Apostles were occasional, being intended to confirm the several churches to which they are addressed, in the rules of Gospel faith and practice wherein they had before been instructed; and are accommodated to the disputes and controversies, errors and false notions, which prevailed among them. The general method observable in these apostolical letters is, first, to discuss the particular point debated in the church, or among the persons to whom they are addressed, and which was the occasion of their being written: and in the next place to give such exhortations to every Christian duty, grace, and virtue, as would be at all times, and in every church, of necessary and absolute importance; paying a particular regard to those graces and virtues, which the disputes that occasioned the Epistle might tempt them to neglect.

The former part of these epistolary writings cannot be properly understood, but by attending carefully to the state of the question there determined: therefore, the errors and vain disputes concerning faith and works, justification and sanctification, election and reprobation, and the like, which have so much vexed and distracted the minds of Christians, have all arisen from one grand mistake, of applying to themselves, or other particular persons, now, certain phrases or passages which plainly referred to the then state and condition, not of particular persons, but of whole churches, whether of Jews or Gentiles.