Down through the centuries of time, no other book of the Bible has more greatly influenced the doctrines of Christianity than the Apostle Paul’s epistle to the Christians in Rome. While many scholars take this book to be a theological treatise, its real purpose is to carefully explain the great mystery of God in extending mercy to the Gentiles and adopting them as true sons of Abraham. This was an incredibly contentious issue in the early churches of Christ, for Jews had been raised to believe that they alone were the Chosen of God. Even the many Jews who believed on Christ found it very difficult to accept the Gentile believers as co-equal heirs of salvation. Had not God given the Law to the Jews to keep and live? Had He not loved Jacob and hated Esau? Had He really put a sudden end to the Law such that it was no longer in effect? In this epistle, Paul masterfully uses the Old Testament Scriptures to vindicate God’s recent choice of the Gentiles and also to demonstrate that He had known this from the beginning.
After writing these commentary, I came upon David Bercot’s book, “How Romans was understood before Augustine and Luther.” What a valuable resource! I cannot recommend it more highly. While the writings of early Christians do not compare to the Spirit-inspired Holy Scriptures of the Apostles, their commentaries on the book of Romans are the maximum testimonies of the true doctrine of Jesus Christ. Roughly two thousand years have passed since those days and history has even more surely corroborated their exposition of the New Testament Scriptures. I do not mean to imply that my commentary agrees perfectly with theirs because it doesn’t. However, the differences are not doctrinal in nature, but involve eschatalogical beliefs; I justify them by pointing to our advantaged position. We can observe and learn from historical events that they did not know.