By whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations, for his name:
All Commentaries on Romans 1:5 Go To Romans 1
John Chrysostom
AD 407
See the candor of the servant. He wishes nothing to be his own, but all his Master's. And indeed it was the Spirit that gave this. Wherefore He says, I have many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now. Howbeit when He, the Spirit of Truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth John 16:12: and again, Separate Me Paul and Barnabas. Acts 13:2 And in the Epistle to the Corinthians, he says, that to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge 1 Corinthians 12:8-11; and that It divides all as It wills. And in addressing the Milesians, he says, Over which the Holy Ghost has made you shepherds and overseers. Acts 20:28 You see, he calls the things of the Spirit, the Son's, and the things of the Son, the Spirit's. Grace and Apostleship; that is, it is not we that have achieved for ourselves, that we should become Apostles. For it was not by having toiled much and labored that we had this dignity allotted to us, but we received grace, and the successful result is a part of the heavenly gift. For obedience to the faith. So it was not the Apostles that achieved it, but grace that paved the way before them. For it was their part to go about and preach, but to persuade was of God, Who wrought in them. As also Luke says, that He opened their heart Acts 16:14; and again, To whom it was given to hear the word of God. To obedience; he says not, to questioning and parade (κατασκευὴν) of argument but to obedience. For we were not sent, he means, to argue, but to give those things which we had trusted to our hands. For when the Master declares anything, they that hear should not be nice and curious handlers of what is told them, but receivers only; for this is why the Apostles were sent, to speak what they had heard, not to add anything from their own stock, and that we for our part should believe— that we should believe what?— concerning His Name. Not that we should be curious about the essence, but that we should believe in the Name; for this it was which also wrought the miracles. For it says, in the Name of Jesus Christ rise up and walk. Acts 3:6 And this too requires faith, neither can one grasp anything of these things by reasoning (λογισμᾥ καταλαβεἵν). Among all nations, among whom are you also the called of Jesus Christ. What? Did Paul preach then to all the nations? Now that he ran through the whole space from Jerusalem to Illyricum, and from thence again went forth to the very ends of the earth, is plain from what he writes to the Romans; but even if he did not come to all, yet still what he says is not false, for he speaks not of himself alone, but of the twelve Apostles, and all who declared the word after them. And in another sense, one should not see any fault to find with the phrase, if about himself, when one considers his ready mind, and how that after death he ceases not to preach in all parts of the world. And consider how he extols the gift, and shows that it is great and much more lofty than the former, since the old things were with one nation, but this gift drew sea and land to itself. And attend to this too, how free the mind of Paul is from all flattery; for when conversing with the Romans, who were seated as it were upon a sort of summit of the whole world, he attaches no more to them than to the other nations, nor does he on the score of their being then in power and ruling, say, that they have in spiritual things also any advantage. But as (he means) we preach to all the nations, so do we to you, numbering them with Scythians and Thracians: for if he did not wish to show this, it were superfluous to say Among whom are you also. And this he does to take down their high spirit (κενὥν τὸ φύσημα) and to prostrate the swelling vanity of their minds, and to teach them to honor others alike to themselves: and so he proceeds to speak upon this very point.
