On Man's Perfection in Righteousness 38–44

“Also they say,” he says, “‘For no one living will be justified in your sight’”; and to this testimony he replied, as it were, to no other effect than to make the holy Scriptures seem to quarrel, whose harmony we ought to show. For he says: “They must be answered with what the evangelist testifies of holy Zechariah, saying: ‘And Zechariah and Elizabeth his wife were both righteous in the sight of the Lord, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord without complaint.’” These two righteous people had certainly read, among those very commandments, how they should cleanse their sins. For Zechariah, as the letter to the Hebrews says of every priest taken from among men, certainly offered sacrifices for his own sins too. And how “without complaint” should be understood we have, I think, sufficiently shown above. “And the blessed apostle,” he says, “says: ‘That we should be holy and without blemish in his sight.’” This is being done so that we may be this, if those without blemish are to be understood as those who are altogether without sin; but if those without blemish are those who are without crime, we cannot deny that there have been such even in this life and are such, because someone is not without any sin just because he has no blemish of crime. Hence the apostle too, when choosing ministers to be ordained, did not say, “if anyone is without sin” (which he could not find), but, “if anyone is without crime,” which he certainly could. Yet he did not show how, according to his case, we should take what is written, “For no one living will be justified in your sight.” For the meaning is plain, declared more clearly by the preceding verse: “Do not enter into judgment with your servant,” he says, “for no one living will be justified in your sight.” He fears judgment because he desires mercy, which triumphs over judgment. For this is the meaning of “Do not enter into judgment with your servant”: “Do not judge me according to yourself, who are without sin; for no one living will be justified in your sight”; which is understood without difficult question as said of this life. And “will not be justified” he referred to that perfection of righteousness which is not in this life.

“Also they say,” he says, “‘If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.’” And to this most evident testimony he tried to reply with testimonies as if contrary, since the same holy John says in the same letter: “But I say this, brothers, that you may not sin. Everyone who is born of God does not commit sin, because his seed remains in him, and he cannot sin.” Also there: “He who is born of God does not sin, because the generation of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him.” “Also there,” he says, “where he says of the Savior: ‘For he appeared to take away sins. Everyone who remains in him does not sin; everyone who sins has not seen him or known him.’ Also there: ‘Beloved, we are now children of God, and it has not yet appeared what we shall be. We know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who has this hope in him sanctifies himself, as he also is holy.’” And yet, though all these testimonies are true, that one is true also which he put forward and did not resolve: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” So, according as we are born of God, we remain in him who appeared to take away sins, that is, in Christ, and we do not sin (this is the inner man being renewed day by day); but according as we are born of that man through whom sin entered the world, and death through sin, and so it passed to all men, we are not without sin, because we are not yet without his infirmity, until, by that renewal which takes place day by day, since according to it we are born of God, the whole infirmity is healed in which we were born of the first man and in which we are not without sin. While its remnants remain in the inner man, though they are lessened day by day in those who make progress, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. For how is it true that “everyone who sins has not seen him or known him,” when, according to the seeing and knowing that will be in sight, no one sees and knows him in this life? But according to the seeing and knowing that is in faith, there are many who sin, certainly the apostates themselves, who nevertheless once believed in him, so that of none of them can it be said, according to the seeing and knowing that is still in faith, that he has not seen him or known him. But I think it is to be understood that the renewal that is being perfected sees and knows him, while the infirmity that is to be consumed neither sees nor knows him; and while any remnants of it, however great, are situated within, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. Although, then, we are children of God by the grace of renewal, yet because of the remnants of infirmity it has not yet appeared what we shall be. We know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. Then there will be no sin, because no infirmity, inner or outer, will remain. “And everyone who has this hope in him sanctifies himself, as he also is holy”: he sanctifies himself not through himself but by believing in him and calling on him who sanctifies his saints. The perfection of this sanctification, which now progresses and grows day by day, will take away all the remnants of infirmity.

“Also they say,” he says, “‘It is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.’” He says they must be answered with what the same apostle says elsewhere of a certain man: “Let him do what he wills.” “Also,” he says, “to Philemon, about Onesimus: ‘I wanted to keep him with me, so that he might serve me on your behalf; but I wanted to do nothing without your consent, so that your good deed might not be as if from necessity but voluntary.’ Also in Deuteronomy: ‘He has set life and death before your face, good and evil. Choose life, that you may live.’ Also in Solomon: ‘God from the beginning established man and left him in the hand of his own counsel. He added his commandments and precepts: if you will keep the precepts, they will keep you, and hereafter to do the faith that pleases. He has set before you water and fire; stretch out your hand to whichever you wish. Before man are good and evil, life and death. Poverty and honor are from the Lord God.’ Also in Isaiah: ‘And if you are willing and listen to me, you shall eat the good things of the land; but if you are unwilling and do not listen to me, the sword shall devour you; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken these things.’” Here, however much they cover themselves, they are laid open. For they declare that they argue against the grace or mercy of God, which we wish to obtain when we say, “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” or, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” For why do we ask for these things with so much groaning in prayer, if it is of man who wills and runs, not of God who shows mercy? Not that this is done without our will, but that the will does not accomplish what it does unless it is helped by God. This is the soundness of faith that makes us pray: seek, that we may find; ask, that we may receive; knock, that it may be opened to us. Whoever argues against this shuts the door of God's mercy against himself. I do not want to say more about so great a matter, because I commit it better to the groanings of the faithful than to my words.

Yet see, I beg you, what sort of argument it is that God's mercy, which even went before him so that he might run, is therefore not necessary to one who wills and runs: because the apostle says of a certain man, “Let him do what he wills,” in the place, I think, where he continues and says, “He does not sin; let him marry”; as though willing to marry were to be counted something great where the help of divine mercy is being argued about so laboriously; or as though even there willing did any good unless God, by the providence by which he governs all things, joined man and woman. Or because the apostle wrote to Philemon, “so that his good deed might not be as if from necessity but voluntary”; as though a good deed were voluntary in any other way than when God works in us both to will and to work for his good will. Or because it is written in Deuteronomy, “He has set life and death before man's face, good and evil,” and he urged him to choose life; as though this very admonition did not come from mercy, or as though choosing life did any good unless God breathed in the love of choosing it and granted that what was chosen be held, of whom it is said, “For wrath is in his indignation, and life in his will.” Or because it is said, “If you will keep the precepts, they will keep you”; as though he who willed the precepts ought not to give thanks to God, since, deserted by all light of truth, he could not will them. With fire and water set before man, he does stretch out his hand where he wills; but higher than all human thought is he who calls from on high, since the beginning of correcting the heart is faith, as it is written, “You will come and pass on from the beginning of faith”; and each chooses good according as God has assigned to each a measure of faith; and, “No one can come to me,” says the prince of faith, “unless the Father who sent me draws him.” That this was said of the faith by which one believes in him he explains clearly enough afterwards, where he says: “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe. For Jesus knew from the beginning who were believing and who would betray him. And he said: This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is given him by my Father.”

But he thought he had found something great for his case in the prophet Isaiah, where God said: “If you are willing and listen to me, you shall eat the good things of the land; but if you are unwilling and do not listen to me, the sword shall devour you; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken these things.” As though the whole law were not full of conditions of this kind; or as though these commandments were given to the proud for any other reason than that the law was placed because of transgression, until the offspring should come to whom the promise was made; whence the law came in so that trespass might abound; and where trespass abounded, grace superabounded. That is, so that man, proudly trusting in his own strength, might receive the commandments, and, failing in them and becoming even a transgressor, might seek a deliverer and savior; and so the fear of the law, having made him humble, might, like a tutor, lead him to faith and grace. So, “their infirmities were multiplied; afterwards they made haste,” and for healing them Christ came at the fitting time. In his grace even the righteous of old believed, helped by that same grace of his, so that they joyfully foreknew him, and some even foretold that he would come: whether within that people of Israel, like Moses, Joshua son of Nun, Samuel, David, and others like them; or outside that people, like Job; or before that people, like Abraham, like Noah, and any others whom the divine Scripture mentions or passes over. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, without whose grace no one is freed from condemnation, whether that which he contracted from him in whom all sinned, or that which he added afterwards by his own iniquities.

And what of what he put at the end: “If anyone says, ‘Can it be that a man does not sin even in word?’, the answer must be: If God wills, he can; and God wills, therefore he can.” He also says: “If anyone says, ‘Can it be that a man does not offend in thought?’, the answer must be: If God wills, he can; and God wills, therefore he can.” See how he would not say, “If God helps, he can,” to whom it is said, “Be my helper, do not forsake me,” certainly not for obtaining bodily goods and avoiding evils, but for doing and accomplishing righteousness. That is why we say, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” And no one is helped unless he himself also does something; but he is helped if he calls on God, if he believes, if he is called according to his purpose; for “those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he might be the firstborn among many brothers; and those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.” We run, then, when we make progress, while our health runs forward in those who make progress (as a scar too is said to run, when a wound is well and carefully treated), so that we may be perfect in every part, without any infirmity of sin at all; which God not only wills, but also brings about and helps to be fulfilled. And the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord does this with us, not only by commandments, sacraments, and examples, but also by the Holy Spirit, through whom love is secretly poured into our hearts, who intercedes with groanings too deep for words, until health is perfected in us and God is shown, to be seen as he is, in eternal truth.

Whoever, then, thinks that there has been or is in this life any man or men, except the one mediator between God and men, for whom forgiveness of sins was not necessary, is contrary to the divine Scripture, where the apostle says: “Through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and so it passed to all men, in whom all sinned”; and he must assert with ungodly contention that there can be men who are free and saved from sin without Christ the mediator freeing and saving them, though he said: “Those who are well do not need a physician, but those who are sick; I came not to call the righteous but sinners.” But whoever says that, after receiving forgiveness of sins, any man has lived or lives so righteously in this flesh that he has no sin at all contradicts the apostle John, who says: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” For he does not say “had” but “have.” If anyone asserts that this was said of that sin which dwells in our mortal flesh, according to the defect contracted by the will of the first man in sinning, whose desires the apostle Paul commands us not to obey; and that he does not sin who does not consent at all to that same sin, though it dwells in the flesh, for any evil work, whether of deed, word, or thought, although desire itself is stirred (which in another sense has received the name of sin, because to consent to it is to sin, and it is stirred in us against our will): he distinguishes these things subtly, but let him see what becomes of the Lord's Prayer, where we say, “Forgive us our debts.” This, unless I am mistaken, would not need to be said if we never consented even a little to the desires of that same sin, whether in a slip of the tongue or in taking pleasure in a thought; but we would only need to say, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” Nor would the apostle James say: “We all offend in many things.” For no one offends except one whom evil desire, against the rule of righteousness, persuades, whether by deceiving or by overpowering, to do or say or think something he ought not, in seeking or in avoiding. Finally, if it is asserted that, except for that head of ours, the savior of his body, there have been or are in this life some righteous men without any sin, either because they never consent to its desires or because what is so small that God does not impute it to godliness is not to be counted as any sin (although it is one thing to be blessed as being without sin, and another to be blessed as one to whom the Lord does not impute sin), I do not think it should be resisted too strongly. For I know that some have held this view, whose opinion on this matter I do not dare to reprove, though I cannot defend it either. But plainly, whoever denies that we ought to pray that we may not enter into temptation (and he denies this who contends that the help of God's grace is not necessary for man not to sin, but that human will suffices once the law has been received), I do not doubt should be removed from the ears of all and anathematized by the mouth of all.