The word πάρεσις, remission, more strictly means pretermission, a passing by, or overlooking. Paul repeatedly uses the proper term for remission (ἄφεσις,) as in Eph. 1:7, Heb. 9:22, &c.; but the word here used occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. Many, therefore, consider the selection of this particular term as designed to express the idea, that sins committed before the advent of Christ might more properly be said to be overlooked, than actually pardoned, until the sacrifice of the Redeemer had been completed; see Wolf’s Curæ. Reference is made to Acts 17:30, where God is said to have overlooked the times of ignorance. But as the word used by the apostle is actually used to express the idea of remission, in Greek writers, (see Elsner,) the majority of commentators adopt that meaning here. The words πάρεσις and ἄφεσις express the same thing, but under different aspects. They differ only as not punishing, and pardoning. To say that God did not punish sins under the old dispensation, is only a different way of saying that he pardoned them. So “not to impute iniquity” is the negative statement of justification. This passage, however, is one of the few which the Romanists quote in support of their doctrine that there was no real pardon, justification, or salvation, before the advent of Christ. The ancient believers at death, according to their doctrine, did not pass into heaven, but into the limbus patrum, where they continued in a semi-conscious state until Christ’s descensus ad inferos for their deliverance. The moden transcendental theologians of Germany, who approach Romanism in so many other points, agree with the Papists also here. Thus Olshausen says, “Under the Old Testament there was no real, but only a symbolical forgiveness of sins.” Our Lord, however, speaks of Abraham as in heaven; and the Psalms are filled with petitions and thanksgiving for God’s pardoning mercy.
Charles Hodge, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, New Edition (Grand Rapids: Louis Kregel, 1882), 149–50.
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