Let that kiss, the token of charity, be from me begun to you all (see note [c] Rom. xvi.): I salute and wish all prosperity to all the Christians among you. So be it. [h] For the time—] The ὅτι here will most conveniently be joined with the δοξαζεῖαι, ver. 16, as the matter of the Christian's joy, and occasion of his glorifying God, that this is the season of judgments beginning at the house of God. For there being two parts of God's κρίμα, or judgment, the one tolerable, the other intolerable; the one for advantage of the sufferer, the other for the greatest disadvantage; the one here called ἄρξασθαι κρίμα, the beginning, or τὸ πρώτον, first part, of the judgment, the other τὸ τέλος, the end, or tail of it; the one assigned to pious men, the οἶκος Θεοῦ, house of God, the other to the impious, obdurate, ἀπειθοῦντες, disobedient, (see note [g] ch. iii.) it must needs be looked on as an happy condition, and that which is matter of joy and not of sorrow to any, that they have their part in the former of these, and not in the latter of them. What the τὸ τέλος, the end, here is, may perhaps be questioned, whether any vengeance in this life, or that greater in another life. But the answer is easy: it belongs primarily to the vengeance that here should light upon the obdurate Jews, their utter excision now approaching, styled τὸ τέλος πάντων, the end of all things, ver. 7; in comparison with which the persecutions that now fell on the persevering Christians from their hands were very light and supportable; but this not to exclude, but to be the entrance on that sad arrear, the dregs of that bitter cup in another world. What is here added of the δίκαιος μόλις σώζεται, the righteous scarcely escaping, is taken from Prov. xi. 31, where that which is in the Hebrew הן צדיק בארץ ישלם, and is from thence rightly rendered by our English, behold, the righteous shall be recompensed on the earth, is by the Septuagint (by mistake, as it is probable, of בארץ for some other word) rendered δίκαιος μόλις σώζεται, the righteous hardly (that is, not without some difficulties and persecutions) escapes; where, as the recompence on earth, which the righteous meets with, is the punishments and afflictions which befall him in this life, so the σώζεται, saved, must be the temporal preservations here, or immunity from afflictions; and μόλις σώζεται, hardly saved, his bearing some sharp pungent part of them, but those not comparable with that other part of God's cup of trembling, which expects the ungodly both here in a remarkable destruction, and in another world. And if the righteous have a compensation or portion of misery in this life, Prov. xi. 31, and, though he escape, yet do it through many afflictions, then how fearful is the expectation of ungodly, sinful men?