Observations on Rom. v. 6-10 and Eph. ii. 3 with the context, and Rom. vii.
Another passage of this apostle, which shows that all who are made partakers of the benefits of Christ’s redemption, are in their first state wicked, desperately wicked, is Rom. v. 6-10. “For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son; much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.”—Here all for whom Christ died, and who are saved by him, are spoken of as being in their first state sinners, ungodly, enemies to God, exposed to divine wrath, and without strength, without ability to help themselves, or deliver their souls from this miserable state.
Dr. T. says, the apostle here speaks of the Gentiles only in their heathen state, in contradistinction to the Jews; and that not of particular persons among the heathen Gentiles, or as to the state they were in personally; but only of the Gentiles collectively taken, or of the miserable state of that great collective body, the heathen world: and that these appellation, sinners, ungodly, enemies, &c. were names by which the apostles in their writings were wont to signify and distinguish the heathen world, in opposition to the Jews; and that in this sense these appellations are to be taken in their epistles, and in this place in particular. 1 And it is observable, that this way of interpreting these phrases in the apostolic writings is become fashionable with many late writers; whereby they not only evade several clear testimonies to the doctrine of original sin, but make void great part of the New Testament; on which account it deserves the more particular consideration.
It is allowed to have been long common and customary among the Jews, especially the sect of the Pharisees, in their pride, and confidence in their privileges as the peculiar people of God, to exalt themselves exceedingly above other nations, and greatly to despise the Gentiles, calling them by such names as sinners, enemies, dogs, &c. Themselves they accounted, in general (excepting the publicans, and the notoriously profligate), as the friends, the special favourites and children, of God; because they were the children of Abraham, were circumcised, and had the law of Moses, as their peculiar privilege, and as a wall of partition between them and the Gentiles.
But it is very remarkable, that a christian divine, who has studied the New Testament, and the epistle to the Romans in particular, so diligently as Dr. T. has done, should so strongly imagine that the apostles of Jesus Christ countenance and cherish these self-exalting, uncharitable dispositions and notions of the Jews which gave rise to such a custom, so far as to fall in with that custom, and adopt that language of their pride and contempt; and especially that the apostle Paul should do it. It is a most unreasonable imagination on many accounts.
1. The whole gospel dispensation is calculated entirely to overthrow and abolish every thing to which this self-distinguishing, self-exalting language of the Jews was owing. It was calculated wholly to exclude such boasting, and to destroy the pride and self-righteousness which were the causes of it. It was calculated to abolish the enmity, and break down the partition-wall between Jews and Gentiles, and of twain, to make one new man, so making peace: to destroy all dispositions in nations and particular persons to despise one another, or to say one to another, Stand by thyself, come not near to me; for I am holier than thou; and to establish the contrary principles of humility, mutual esteem, honour and love, and universal union, in the most firm and perfect manner.
2. Christ, when on earth, set himself, through the whole course of his ministry, to militate against this pharisaical spirit, practice, and language of the Jews; by which they showed so much contempt of the Gentiles, publicans, and such as were openly lewd and vicious, and thus exalted themselves above them; calling them sinners and enemies, and themselves holy, and God’s children; not allowing the Gentile to be their neighbour, &c. He condemned the Pharisees for not esteeming themselves sinners, as well as the publicans; trusting in themselves that they were righteous, and despising others. He militated against these things in his own treatment of some Gentiles, publicans, and others, whom they called sinners, and in what he said on those occasions. 2