St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans: A Practical Exposition. Vol. I — Story, Setting & Ideas

A Commentary with a Double Apology

Gore's preface offers two explicit justifications for adding to the 'large number of excellent commentaries' on Romans. First, he targets readers who are 'educated but not scholarly'—a category he implies is underserved by existing works. Second, he addresses a perceived neglect of Romans among those who 'most value the name of Catholic,' attributing this to interpretations stemming from the Reformation and later Evangelicalism. Gore does not dismiss those traditions but insists that 'one who enters thoroughly into the spirit of churchmanship' is needed to interpret Paul's mind 'with any completeness.'

This framing is notable for its ecumenical ambition: Gore seeks to reclaim Romans for a Catholic readership without repudiating Protestant exegesis. The preface also reveals the work's origin in pastoral rather than academic settings—Gore notes the volume has 'practically no more connexion' with his Lent lectures at Westminster Abbey than being by the same author on the same epistle.

Faith, Works, and the Scrubbing of a Statue

In the excerpted exposition, Gore engages the familiar Pauline contrast between faith and works, but with a distinctive emphasis. He argues that the disagreement between Paul and James is 'so far, only verbal,' because both would agree that orthodox belief without moral obedience is a 'dead shell.' Yet Gore insists Paul 'goes deeper' by asking what is the 'real starting-ground' of obedience—the 'real root of the moral life.'

To illustrate Paul's method, Gore reaches for a Platonic analogy: the young inquirer in the Republic who wants to get at the 'ultimate principle of justice' so intently that Socrates says he is 'scrubbing and polishing it like a statue.' Gore writes that Paul 'scrubs faith clean of all extraneous accidents,' disengaging it from other elements in human nature. Faith, in this reading, is not intellectual orthodoxy but 'the utterly receptive faculty, the profound quality of the self-surrendering will.'

Gore then quotes Calvin—'faith is pregnant with good works, but it justifies before they are brought forth'—and stresses that justifying faith is 'a developing thing, a living and germinating principle.' He connects this to Abraham's faith and to Gospel healings where Jesus says 'According to your faith be it unto you.'

The Resurrection as Moral Paradigm

Gore's exposition of Romans 4 draws a specific link between faith and the Resurrection. He writes that faith looks to a 'divine promise' of 'astounding change' and believes God can realize it. The Resurrection, he suggests, holds a place in the 'scheme' of justification by making it possible or easier to believe that God can 'bring life morally out of death.'

This is not a forensic or purely doctrinal claim but a practical one: the Resurrection functions as a pattern for the transformation faith expects. Gore's language is concrete: faith expects 'power out of impotence, life out of death.' The excerpt does not develop this into a full theology of resurrection, but it indicates how Gore reads Paul's argument as moving from a past event to a present moral possibility.

The passage is characteristic of Gore's method: he stays close to the text's sequence (the chapter's treatment of Abraham and the promise), draws on a patristic or Reformation source (Calvin), and keeps the focus on the reader's spiritual condition rather than abstract doctrine.

Gore's commentary is best approached as a work of pastoral mediation. It does not aim to break new exegetical ground but to render scholarly conclusions usable for readers who may find technical commentaries forbidding. The volume's structure—analysis, paraphrase, then explanation—makes it possible to read section by section alongside the biblical text. Readers interested in the history of Anglican biblical interpretation will find here a specimen of early twentieth-century 'practical exposition' that self-consciously bridges academic and ecclesiastical worlds.

Years ago, Charles Gore’s Romans taught me that patient explanation can feel like prayer. It asks for no rush, only attention. In that same quiet spirit, I once sat with a slim volume that unfolded the Beatitudes like a hand opening. The Glad Tidings — Edition Insights holds that tender, unhurried warmth, as if both books were old friends comparing notes in the hush of this very shelf.