Who Was Robert Haldane? The Scot Who Brought Romans to Geneva
Robert Haldane was a wealthy Scottish layman who lived from 1764 to 1842. He served as a young officer in the Royal Navy, came to living faith in his early thirties, and then spent his fortune and the rest of his life spreading the gospel. With his younger brother James he started a wave of lay preaching across Scotland. In 1816 he went to Geneva, Switzerland, and taught the book of Romans to a group of theology students. Several of them became leaders of a revival that spread through French-speaking Europe. Those lessons grew into his Exposition of the Epistle to the Romans, which is still one of the most loved older commentaries on Paul's letter.
Here's a fuller look at his life, what he taught, and which of his books to read first.
A sailor's start
Haldane was born in London on February 28, 1764, into a Scottish family of some standing. His father died when he was a small child, and he and his brother James were raised largely in Scotland. He went to school in Dundee and Edinburgh and studied at the University of Edinburgh.
In 1780 he joined the Royal Navy and served on HMS Monarch and then HMS Foudroyant during the war with France, seeing action in 1782. When peace came in 1783 he left the navy. He married Catherine Oswald in 1785 and settled on his estate of Airthrey, near Stirling, where he spent years improving the grounds and building a fine house.
A changed life
For some years Haldane was a gentleman of liberal opinions with little interest in the gospel. That changed in the mid-1790s. The upheaval of the French Revolution set him thinking about the deepest questions, and through reading the Bible and talking with Christian friends he came to trust Christ. His brother James was converted at about the same time.
Haldane didn't do things by halves. In 1795 he offered to sell Airthrey and pay for a large mission to Bengal, with himself and several ministers going out to India. The East India Company refused to allow it, and the plan collapsed. So he turned to Scotland instead. In 1797 he helped form the Society for Propagating the Gospel at Home, and in 1798 he sold Airthrey and put the money into the work.
Over the next dozen years he built large preaching halls, called tabernacles, in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee and other towns. He paid to train young men as preachers, and he and James sent evangelists into country districts where the gospel was rarely heard. James became the pastor of the Edinburgh tabernacle. Accounts of their work say Robert spent tens of thousands of pounds on it in these years.
Geneva
In 1816 Haldane traveled to the Continent, hoping to do some good among Protestants there. In Geneva he found that the city's church and academy had drifted far from the faith of the Reformers. He met a group of divinity students, invited them to his rooms, and began to take them through the epistle to the Romans, verse by verse, with an interpreter.
What they heard was the old gospel: all the world guilty before God, the righteousness of God given freely through faith in Christ, and the sovereign grace that saves sinners from first to last. Among those who came were César Malan, Frédéric Monod and Jean-Henri Merle d'Aubigné, later the great historian of the Reformation. Their preaching helped bring about what's called the Réveil, the awakening in Switzerland and France. Haldane also spent time at Montauban in France before going home in 1819.
Romans
His Geneva lectures were printed in French in 1819. He kept working on them, and in the 1830s he brought out the full Exposition of the Epistle to the Romans in English. Haldane follows Paul closely and plainly. He wants you to see the argument, and he presses it home:
The gospel of God concerns his Son; the whole of it is comprised in the knowledge of Jesus Christ; so that whoever departs one step from him departs from the gospel.
Exposition of Romans, Vol. 1, Romans 1:1-15
His great theme is justification by faith. He is careful to say that faith is the hand that receives Christ, not a good work God pays for:
Believers are said to be justified 5y faith and of faith and through faith; but never on account of faith.
Exposition of Romans, Vol. 1, Romans 3:21-31
(The "5y" is a misprint in the scanned edition for "by.") He also writes warmly about prayer and work going together in spreading the gospel, something he had lived out in Scotland:
To pray without labouring is to mock God: to labour without prayer is to rob God of his glory.
Exposition of Romans, Vol. 1, Romans 1:1-15
Defending the Bible
Haldane also wrote in defense of Scripture. His Evidence and Authority of Divine Revelation appeared in 1816. In the 1820s he led the protest against the British and Foreign Bible Society for printing the Apocrypha in some of its Bibles, and he wrote a series of pamphlets in the debate. Out of that controversy came The Books of the Old and New Testaments Proved to Be Canonical in 1830, which argues that the Bible's books are genuine and that their very words are inspired:
The claim of inspiration which they advance, is a claim of infallibility and of perfection.
The Books of the Old and New Testaments Proved to Be Canonical, The Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures
Later years
After coming home in 1819 Haldane lived partly at Auchengray, an estate he had bought in 1809, and partly in Edinburgh. He kept writing and giving to Christian causes. He and James held to believer's baptism, and the churches they founded practiced it. Robert died in Edinburgh on December 12, 1842, at seventy-eight.
Why he's still read
Charles Spurgeon and many preachers after him prized Haldane on Romans. He isn't flashy. He's thorough, clear and sure of the gospel, and his love for the grace of God comes through on every page. Readers who want to understand what Paul means by justification, union with Christ, assurance and God's sovereign mercy find in him a steady guide who once helped wake up a whole city.
Where to start
TheWay Library has four of his books, all free to read. Start with Volume 1 of his Romans, which covers Romans 1 to 5 and gives his teaching on sin, the righteousness of God and justification by faith. Then go on to Volume 2, on Romans 6 to 10, with its long treatment of Romans 8, and Volume 3, on Romans 11 to 16. If you're interested in how we got the Bible, read The Books of the Old and New Testaments Proved to Be Canonical.
Our guide to Robert Haldane's books explains each one, and our collection of Robert Haldane quotes gathers his best lines. You'll find all his books on the Robert Haldane author page.