On Baptism

That one must first become a disciple of the Lord, and then be counted worthy of holy baptism.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of the living God, after his resurrection from the dead, received the promise of God his Father, who had said through David the prophet, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as your possession.” He gathered his own disciples to himself and first made known to them the authority given to him by the Father, saying, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth”; and then he sends them out, saying, “Go, make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” Since, then, the Lord first commanded, “Make disciples of all the nations,” and then added, “baptizing them,” and what follows, you passed over the first in silence and asked us for an account of the second. We reckoned that we would be acting against the command of the Apostle if we did not answer at once, for he said, “Be ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you for an account”; so we have handed on to you the account of the baptism according to the Gospel of the Lord, which has a glory surpassing that of the blessed John, recalling a few of the many things said about it in the divinely inspired Scriptures. Yet we have reckoned it necessary to go back to the order handed down by the Lord, so that you too, first learning the force of “Make disciples,” and then in due sequence receiving the account of the most glorious baptism, may be brought safely to perfection, being taught to observe all that the Lord commanded his own disciples, as it is written. Here, then, we have heard him say, “Make disciples”; it remains to recall what is said elsewhere about such a command, so that, having first set our mind right in a way pleasing to God, and then having kept the fitting and necessary order, we may not, as far as it is possible, fall short of the goal of pleasing God. For it is the Lord’s custom to make plain, through what is said in other places, what he has commanded somewhere in general terms. So with “Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven”: having said it simply, in just this way, here, he makes clear the “how” in another place, saying, “Sell your possessions and give alms; make for yourselves purses that do not grow old, a treasure in the heavens that does not fail.” And so with many other things.

A disciple, then, as we learn from the Lord himself, is everyone who comes to the Lord so as to follow him, that is, to hear his words, and to believe and obey him as Master and King and Physician and Teacher of truth, in hope of eternal life; and this if he abides in them, as it is written: “Jesus then said to the Jews who had believed in him, ‘If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’” That is plainly the freedom of the soul from the devil’s bitter tyranny, by being rescued from the domination of sins (“for whoever commits sin,” he says, “is a slave of sin”) and from the condemnation of death; as Paul the Apostle also handed down to us, saying, “For him who knew no sin he made sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him”; and again, “For as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so through the obedience of the one the many will be made righteous.” The one who believes in the Lord and presents himself as fit for discipleship must learn, first, to stand apart from every sin, and then from everything that draws him away from the ready obedience owed to the Lord on many counts, even if those things seem reasonable. For it is impossible for one who commits sin, or is entangled in the affairs of this life, or is anxious even about the things necessary for living, to serve the Lord, let alone become his disciple: the Lord who did not say to the young man, “Come, follow me,” before commanding him to sell his possessions and give to the poor. Nor did he command even this before the young man confessed, “All these I have kept.” For one who has not yet received the forgiveness of sins and been cleansed from them in the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, but serves the devil and is held fast by the sin that dwells in him, is unable to serve the Lord, who gave an inviolable sentence when he said, “Whoever commits sin is a slave of sin; and the slave of sin does not remain in the house.” Paul, who speaks in Christ, also testifies, writing, “But the slave of sin is free from righteousness.” And again the Lord says, “No one can serve two masters,” and what follows. And by what he taught, decisively and in many ways, he showed that not even those who let themselves be anxious about the things necessary for living can serve God, let alone become disciples. Hence the Apostle, looking at the matter more broadly, learned to say, “What partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What agreement has Christ with Beliar? Or what portion has a believer with an unbeliever? What accord has the temple of God with idols?” And again, decisively: “The flesh desires against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. These are opposed to each other, so that you do not do whatever you wish.” Let us recall, further, what he said when teaching us still more pointedly: “For I know that the law is spiritual; but I am fleshly, sold under sin. For what I do, I do not understand; for I do not do the good that I want, but the evil that I hate, this I do. But if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. But now it is no longer I who do it, but the sin that dwells in me.” And having worked out this very point at greater length, that one held fast by sin cannot serve the Lord, he plainly shows us the one who redeems us from such tyranny, saying, “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” And a little later he adds, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh.”

And through what he says in another place he clearly sets before us the great grace of God’s love for humankind through the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, saying, “For as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one the many will be made righteous.” In another place, contemplating the still more wonderful love of God for humankind in Christ, he says, “For him who knew no sin he made sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.” From the passages recalled and others like them, then, it is altogether necessary, if indeed we have not received the grace of God in vain, first to be rescued from the power of the devil, who drives the one held fast by sin to the evils he does not want; and then, having renounced all present things and oneself, and having withdrawn from attachment to life, to become a disciple of the Lord, as he himself said: “If anyone comes to me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me,” which is to say, let him become my disciple. He hands down the same thing more fully, more demonstratively, and more explicitly in the Gospel according to Luke, which we shall recall shortly. All of us who believe are redeemed from such condemnation for sins by the grace of God through his only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who said, “This is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins”; and the Apostle testifies in what he writes, at one time, “Love one another, as Christ also loved us and gave himself up as an offering and sacrifice to God”; at another, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law”; and many such things. When, then, forgiveness of sins is given, a person receives freedom from sin from the one who redeemed us, Jesus Christ our Lord, so as to be able to come to the word. And even then no one is yet worthy to follow the Lord, who (I say again) did not say to the young man, “Come, follow me,” before saying, “Sell your possessions and give to the poor.” Nor did he command even this before the young man confessed that he was clean of every transgression, by saying that he had done everything the Lord had said. So in this too the order must be kept. We are taught not only to despise possessions and even the things necessary for living, but also to rise above the duties toward one another that are held to be just by law and by nature, since our Lord Jesus Christ said, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me”; and likewise with the rest of one’s nearest kin, and plainly much more with those more distant and with strangers to the faith. To these words he adds, “Whoever does not take his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.” The Apostle, having achieved this, writes for our instruction, “I have been crucified to the world, and the world to me. And I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.”

Again, one may recall what the Lord said face to face to each person. To the one who said, “Let me first go and bury my father,” he said, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” To the one who said, “Let me first go and say farewell to those at my home,” he spoke more rebukingly and with a sharper threat, for he said, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and turns back is fit for the kingdom of God.” So even a human duty that causes a slight delay in the undistracted obedience owed to the Lord, though it may seem reasonable, is foreign to one who wishes to become the Lord’s disciple, and deserves a more terrible threat. He legislates more generally when he says, “If anyone comes to me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” And if we come to recall what the Lord said to the one who said, “Blessed is he who will eat bread in the kingdom of God,” we learn of a more fearful judgment of wrath and severity, one that cuts such people off from every good hope. He speaks thus: “A certain man made a great supper and invited many. And at the hour of the supper he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ And they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it; I ask you, have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to test them; I ask you, have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and for that reason I cannot come.’ And the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house was angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the crippled and the blind and the lame.’ And the servant said, ‘Master, what you commanded has been done, and there is still room.’ And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out into the roads and hedges, and compel them to come in, so that my house may be filled. For I tell you that none of those men who were invited shall taste my supper.’” Again, the only-begotten Son of the living God himself, who was sent by the Father not to judge the world but to save the world, remaining true to himself and fulfilling the will of the good God and Father, adds to the sentence of severity a teaching that makes us worthy to become his disciples, and says, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” The hatred meant is plainly not one that plots harm, but the virtue of godliness in disobeying those who would draw one away. “And whoever,” he says, “does not carry his cross and follow after me cannot be my disciple.” This we believe we have pledged ourselves to through baptism in water, when we confess that we have been crucified with him, have died with him, have been buried with him, and so on, as it is written.

Taking account of our weakness, he was pleased also to strengthen our hearts in full assurance of the truth through examples, and to make us readier to obey, where he says: “For which of you, wishing to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going to meet another king in war, does not first sit down and take counsel whether he is able with ten thousand to meet the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is still far off, he sends an embassy and asks for terms of peace. So therefore any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. Salt is good; but if the salt has lost its taste, with what will it be seasoned? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the dunghill; they throw it out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” If we believe these things, then, having first been freed from the devil’s domination by keeping away from everything the devil desires, by the grace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ (if indeed we have not received such grace in vain), and having then renounced not only the world and its desires but also the just duties we owe one another, and even our own life, whenever any of these draws us away from the undistracted and prompt obedience owed to God, then we are counted worthy to become disciples of the Lord. From then on we are taught by Moses and the prophets, the evangelists and the apostles: God’s making in the beginning, through his only-begotten Son, our Lord and God Jesus Christ, of all things visible and invisible; what the divinely inspired Scriptures record of God’s kindness and severity, exercised with great patience, to show his righteousness and for our instruction; the prophecies of the incarnation of our Lord Jesus, and of the opposing events that befell together at that time; his glorious resurrection from the dead and ascension, and his most glorious appearing at the consummation of the age; the doctrines of the godliness according to the Gospel, complete and acceptable to God, in the love of Christ Jesus our Lord, in hope of eternal life and of the heavenly kingdom; and the judgments of just recompense: for those who do what is forbidden or set aside what is approved, eternal punishment; and for those who live worthily of the Gospel of God in sound faith working through the love of Christ, eternal life and the heavenly kingdom in Christ Jesus our Lord, for which they hope.

How one is baptized with the baptism in the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Our Lord Jesus Christ has given us the commandment to love one another as he loved us, and through Paul the Apostle he teaches us to bear with one another in love. So I have readily accepted the charge laid on me by your reverence in Christ, concerning the most glorious baptism according to the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, not as one able to say anything worthy of it, but contributing, like the widow who put in the two small coins. In this too I need the prayer of those who love the Lord, so that, by the grace of the good God and of his Christ, the holy and good Spirit, who reminds us and teaches us whatever he hears from the Lord, may direct our mind into the way of peace and our sound word to the building up of the faith, and so in us and in you the saying may be fulfilled, “Give a wise man an occasion, and he will be wiser.” But one must know that one must first become a disciple, and in this way be counted worthy of the most wonderful baptism. For so our Lord and God Jesus Christ himself, the only-begotten Son of the living God, commanded his own disciples. We have therefore of necessity handed on to you separately also what the Lord himself said about those who wish to become disciples of Christ, recalling at least a few things out of many. And since being born from above is promised the sight of the kingdom of God, while being born of water and spirit is promised entry into the kingdom of God, I reckon it necessary to set out a few of the many things said about the kingdom of heaven, so that we may in no way fall short of it. For “in life a near miss is no small thing,” as one of our wise men said; and this is clear to most people from experience itself. But one may be still more surely convinced of it by the exactness required of the priests and of the animals offered in sacrifice. Among them, if some small blemish was found, or a maiming, not of a whole limb but of one part only (as it is written, the lobe of an ear), neither was the man admitted to the priesthood nor was the animal acceptable as a sacrifice. For the Apostle said, “These things happened to them as types, and they were written for our admonition, on whom the ends of the ages have come”; and the Lord plainly showed the superiority of what is ours when he said, “Something greater than the temple is here”; and he showed still more that we must take more exact care of the soul when he said, “From the one to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.”

Let us recall, then, what is said about the kingdom of heaven. Our Lord Jesus Christ, when he went up the mountain and began his teaching with the beatitudes, proclaimed as the first beatitude one that holds the promise of the kingdom of heaven. For he said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” In the eighth beatitude he says, “Blessed are those who have been persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” And again, prophesying through the parable of the shepherd the blessing at the time of recompense, he says, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food,” and what follows. In the Gospel according to Luke, at another time and in another place, as the writings show, setting out beatitudes again, he says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”; and again, “Do not fear, little flock, for your heavenly Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give alms. Make for yourselves purses that do not grow old, a treasure in the heavens that does not fail.” These, then, and such as these are the things by which one is counted worthy of the kingdom of heaven. But the things without which it is impossible to enter the kingdom of heaven the Lord declares in the Gospel according to Matthew, saying, “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven”; and again, “Unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven”; and again, “Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.” In the Gospel according to John he says to Nicodemus, “Unless one is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God”; and again, “Unless one is born of water and spirit, he will never enter the kingdom of God.”

Against all of these the sentence is one, and plainly the danger is equal for all if one thing is lacking. For if the Lord says, “Not one iota or one stroke will pass from the law until all is accomplished,” how much more from the Gospel, since the Lord himself says, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away”? Hence James the apostle took courage and declared, “Whoever keeps the whole law but stumbles in one point has become guilty of all.” He learned to say this from the threat the Lord made to Peter, after the beatitudes and the testimonies and promises, beyond anything human, that he had given him: “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.” And Paul the apostle, who fills up what is lacking of the afflictions of Christ for the sake of his body, which is the church, speaking in Christ, solemnly testifies to the things for which, above all, one is not counted worthy of the kingdom of heaven and falls under the judgment of death. At one time he says decisively, “Those who practice such things are worthy of death.” (Why did he not say, “those who practice these things,” but, “those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of heaven”?) And again, more generally, “The unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God”; and likewise elsewhere. Our Lord Jesus Christ himself declared in the Gospel according to Luke, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and turns back is fit for the kingdom of God.” Here we must of necessity observe that so fearful and inviolable a judgment is passed, not on many sins, but on one, and that one among things permitted, if it causes even a single, brief delay in the obedience owed to the Master on many counts, an obedience that must be without excuse, most prompt, and undistracted. From all these things, then, and such as these, we are taught that one must fulfil, entirely and lawfully, all the things to which the promise of the kingdom of heaven is attached and without which the grace of the kingdom is refused, and must guard oneself against all the things for which no one inherits the kingdom of heaven, and so expect to be counted worthy of the promise. For one engaged in the contest of pleasing God must not only be rid of all wickedness, but also be unmaimed and blameless in every word of God. For Paul the apostle, after contemplating the great and indescribable love of God and of his Christ toward us, for our righteousness and salvation, adds: “Giving no offense in anything, so that our ministry may not be blamed, but in everything commending ourselves as servants of God.”

For just as the poor in spirit, unless he is born of water and spirit, cannot enter the kingdom of heaven because of the sentence, so again, if his righteousness does not exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, or if any other such thing is lacking, he is not counted worthy of the kingdom because of the like sentence. For it is written, “that he might present the church to himself glorious, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it might be holy and blameless.” And there are many such passages; whoever reads them with more care is the more firmly assured that one must fulfil everything in order to be counted worthy of the kingdom of heaven. That the one who abounds in righteousness, or who has been born from above, has brought to completion all the good deeds together on which the beatitudes rest, and the rest besides, and is acknowledged to be a doer of these and such things, the discussion of being born from above will show a little later, by the grace of God. But since, as was said before, the charge from your reverence asked of us an account of the most wonderful baptism according to the Gospel, I think it follows, after what has been said about the kingdom of heaven, that we should learn briefly also the difference between the baptism according to Moses and that of John, and then by the grace of God become worthy to understand the surpassing wonder in the baptism of our Lord Jesus Christ, in the incomparable excess of its glory. For the only-begotten Son of the living God declared that something greater than the temple is here, and something greater than Solomon is here, and something greater than Jonah is here. The Apostle, having first described the unapproachable glory of Moses in the ministry of the law to the Jews, solemnly testifies, adding, “For indeed what was glorified has not been glorified in this respect, because of the surpassing glory.” John the Baptist, than whom none is greater among those born of women, testifies, saying at one time, “He must increase, but I must decrease”; at another, “I baptize you in water for repentance, but he baptizes you in the Holy Spirit and fire”; and many such things. As much as the Holy Spirit differs from water, so much, plainly, does the one who baptizes in the Holy Spirit surpass the one who baptizes in water, and so too does the baptism itself; so that John himself, who received such great testimony, and of such a kind, from the Lord, said beforehand without shame, “I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandal.”

So from everything the surpassing greatness of the baptism according to the Gospel of Christ is plain. Even if it is impossible to understand it worthily, it is still godly and profitable to speak of it as far as we can, as God enables us, from the Scriptures themselves. The baptism handed down through Moses, then, first recognized a difference between sins, for not all sins had the grace of forgiveness; then it required various sacrifices, was exacting about purification, set apart for a time the one in uncleanness and defilement, and kept watch of days and hours; and only then was baptism received, as a seal upon the cleansing. John’s baptism had an advantage many times greater. It made no distinction between sins, required no variety of sacrifices, was not exacting about purification, and kept no watch of days or hours. There was no delay at all in anything concerning the grace of God and of his Christ: as soon as anyone came confessing his sins, however many and of whatever kind, he was baptized in the river Jordan and at once received the forgiveness of sins. But the Lord’s baptism has a meaning beyond everything human, a glory higher than every human desire and prayer, and an excess of grace and power greater than the sun’s excess over the stars. Rather, the sayings of the saints already recalled set forth its incomparable superiority more forcefully. Yet that is no reason to keep silent. We must speak, using the very sayings of our Lord Jesus Christ as our guides, and being led as through a mirror and in a riddle; not so that the glory may be diminished by our interpretation, given in weakness of body and contemptible speech, but so that in this too the greatness of the patience and love for humankind of the good God may be wondered at, because he bears with those who stammer out the great things of his love and grace in Christ Jesus.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, then, said, “Unless one is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God,” and again, “Unless one is born of water and spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” After the resurrection from the dead, when the prophecy spoken through David in the person of God the Father was being fulfilled in him (“You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as your possession,” which has indeed come to pass and is before the eyes of all), he then gives his disciples a command, as if setting it against the first command, which forbade them to go into the way of the Gentiles, saying, “Go, make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” I reckon it necessary to grasp and understand through faith the force of each saying, and to speak, so far as speech may be given us at our common prayers in the opening of our mouth. For it is written, “If you do not believe, neither will you understand”; and again, “I believed, therefore I spoke.” In the divinely inspired Scripture, I think, the names, words, and things of ordinary usage are not taken up by God and his Christ, and by the holy prophets, evangelists, and apostles, simply and at random, as it happened, but with discernment in the Holy Spirit, toward the goal of godly understanding; and this not wholly, but in part, so far as each contributes to the sound teaching at hand, to thinking godly thoughts, and to guiding the mind to an understanding of the judgments and doctrines of godliness. So we too must attend to each saying with examination and care, and choose its sense according to the goal of the upward calling. And we do this if, at our common prayers, Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of the living God, strengthens us, so that it may come about in us as the Apostle said, “I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me.”

The words “from above,” then, show, I think, the correction of the earlier birth in the filth of sins. For Job said, “No one is clean from filth, not even if his life is one day long”; and David laments, saying, “In iniquities I was conceived, and in sins my mother conceived me”; and the Apostle solemnly testifies, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation through faith in his blood.” Therefore the forgiveness of sins is given to those who believe, since the Lord himself said, “This is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins”; as the Apostle again testifies, saying, “according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, with which he favored us in the Beloved, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us.” This is so that, just as a statue that has been broken and shattered and has lost the glorious form of the king is formed anew by the wise craftsman and good maker, who claims back the glory of his own handiwork, and is restored to its ancient glory, so we too, who suffered through disobedience to the commandment, as it is written, “Man, being in honor, did not understand; he was compared to the senseless beasts and became like them,” may be called back to the first glory of the image of God. For “God made man,” it says, “according to the image and likeness of God.” How this comes about Paul the apostle taught, saying, “Thanks be to God that you, who were slaves of sin, have obeyed from the heart the pattern of teaching to which you were handed over”; so that, as wax handed over to the pattern of an engraving is formed exactly to the form cut in the engraving, so we too, having handed ourselves over to the pattern of the teaching according to the Gospel, may be formed in the inner man, fulfilling what he said by way of command: “Having put off the old man with his deeds, and having put on the new, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of the one who created him”; and many such things.

The teaching about being born of water Paul, who speaks in Christ, hands down as doctrine, saying, “Or do you not know, brothers, that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we shall be in that of his resurrection also, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. For one who has died has been justified from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him, knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, no longer dies; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also, consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” From all these the teaching about birth from above is also seen by likeness. But it was impossible to be born from above without the grace of God going before, as the same Apostle shows from what he sets before the chief points about baptism and from what he adds after them. For he begins from: “But God shows his own love for us in that, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more, then, having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved through him from the wrath. For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.”

And many such passages clearly and magnificently set forth the great and indescribable love of God for humankind, in the gift of the forgiveness of sins and of authority and power for the deeds achieved to the glory of God and of his Christ, in hope of eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Through him, he says, “As through one trespass condemnation came to all people, so also through one act of righteousness justification of life came to all people.” Having set out what follows as doctrine, he then says, “Or do you not know, brothers, that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” Why? So that, with grace going before, we may contribute what we owe, our works done in faith working through love, and in this way the good pleasure of God’s love in Christ may be brought to completion in us. There is need, then, of a great contest, and a lawful one, so that we may not receive in vain such and so great a grace of the love of God in Christ, as the same Apostle says: “For him who knew no sin he made sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Working together with him, we also urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain.” And the Lord declared firmly that “from the one to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.” This is done blamelessly if the things added to what was said before, and those said in connection with them on the same subject of baptism, are exactly kept, and if we faithfully receive what is joined to them, in the power of the same grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord in the Holy Spirit, so that by believing we may understand, by the grace of God; and what we have been counted worthy to understand … the prophet testifies. For the only-begotten Son of the living God himself set out a fearful and inviolable judgment, saying, “The one who knew his master’s will and did not do it will receive many blows”; yet he did not leave unpunished even the one who did wrong in ignorance.

And so that, as was said before, we may be led through more familiar sayings and things to an understanding of the saving doctrine in baptism as well, let us attend earnestly, in full assurance of the truth, to what is signified, and take every thought toward the goal of godliness. “We were baptized,” he says, so that from this we may learn that, just as wool dipped in dye is changed in color… or rather, let us take as our guide John the Baptist, who prophesied of the Lord, “He will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire,” so that we may be enlightened with the light of knowledge for the understanding of the great light, and let us say this. Iron dipped in fire that is fanned by the wind shows more plainly whether it has any flaw in itself, and becomes readier to be cleansed. It is changed not only in color; its hardness and stubbornness are turned to softness, so that it becomes better suited to the working of the craftsman’s hands and is shaped remarkably to the will of its master; and, becoming brighter than itself after its blackness, it not only glows and flashes itself, but also lights and warms what comes near it. So it follows, and is necessary, that the one baptized in fire, that is, in the word of teaching, which exposes the wickedness of sins and makes plain the grace of righteous deeds, should hate and abhor unrighteousness, as it is written, and come to desire to be cleansed through faith in the power of the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, who said, “This is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins,” as the Apostle also testifies: “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of trespasses.” He must be cleansed not only from all lawlessness and sin, but also from every defilement of flesh and spirit; and then, baptized into the Lord’s death, he must be conformed to that death, which is to be dead to sin, to himself, and to the world; so that, living according to the pattern of the incarnation, imprinted and formed in heart, word, and deed by the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, as wax by an engraving, he may fulfil what is written: “Thanks be to God that you, who were slaves of sin, have obeyed from the heart the pattern of teaching to which you were handed over”; and so may be counted worthy to keep what is added in connection with it: “We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death.” Why? “So that, as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” For one who has died must be buried, and one who has been buried in the likeness of death must rise through the grace of God in Christ, and no longer have the face of the inner man like the scorched bottom of a pot because of sins; but, his sins having been exposed in the fire and forgiveness having been received through the blood of Christ, he must from then on make the righteous deeds in Christ flash out, through newness of life, beyond any precious stone, however large. Having put away, then, the hardness of disobedience, let us show ready obedience to the commands, and, fervent in spirit, let us shine; let us be rescued from the power of darkness that drags us down to death (“for the wages of sin is death”), so that in us too may come about what the Apostle said: “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?” And obeying the Lord, the sun of righteousness, let us be enlightened by him and be counted worthy of understanding and power, so as to be justified in him; and let us not only be made bright ourselves, beyond snow (for God who made the promise does not lie: “Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them white as snow”), but also give light to those near us.

At one time we hear the Lord say, “You are the light of the world”; at another we hear and do, “Let your light so shine before people, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” Then the Apostle too will surely testify of us, saying, “Among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, as a boast for me in the day of Christ.” And how is the newness of life not more strikingly evident, not only in comparison with Greeks and worldly people, but also, far beyond them, in comparison with those justified by the law, when we not only do not reach for increase and for more, as the people of the world do, but do not even lay claim to what we have and own, and are eager, beyond what the law asks, to do good to those in need? For we not only do good to our neighbors, but extend kindness even to enemies and the wicked, doing according to the commandment of our Lord Jesus Christ, “Be merciful, as your heavenly Father also is merciful.” And how do we not walk in newness of life, and fulfil a righteousness beyond that of the scribes and Pharisees, when we keep to the Lord’s words: “It was said to those of old, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, do not resist the evil one; but whoever strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone wishes to go to law with you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two.” For we not only do not avenge the wrongs already done to us, as the scribes and Pharisees urge, since the law given through Moses permits it, but we show still greater forbearance, holding out our readiness to endure the same or even worse. And so both are achieved in us together: death, in not being moved to anger against the one who dealt us the first blow; and newness of life in the Lord, in offering him the other cheek also.

And how is a person not dead to the law as well, when he does not lay claim to what is taken from him, and alive in Christ, when he gives up his cloak too? So we are taught likewise to keep a righteousness that goes beyond all righteousness according to the law. That we must not only be crucified to the world but also die to the law we can learn as doctrine from the same Apostle. At one time he says, “I have been crucified to the world, and the world to me. I no longer live, but Christ lives in me”; at another, after much boasting of the highest distinctions under the law, he says, “But indeed I count all things to be rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having my own righteousness that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Jesus Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death, if somehow I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.” And a little later, teaching us to think the same as he does, he says more explicitly, “Let those of us, then, who are mature think this way.”

And elsewhere, more forcefully, as if setting out a necessary doctrine, he says, “So you too were put to death to the law through the body of Christ, so that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. For while we were in the flesh, the passions of sins, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we have been released from the law, having died to that in which we were held, so that we serve in newness of spirit and not in oldness of letter.” “For the letter,” that is, the law, “kills; but the spirit,” that is, the word of the Lord, “gives life.” As he himself says, “The flesh profits nothing; it is the spirit that gives life. My words are spirit and are life.” And the foremost of the apostles testifies, saying, “To whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. And we have believed and have come to know that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” If we keep this in full assurance of the truth with more earnest care, we can escape that fearful judgment written by Moses prophetically and with a threat: “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me. You shall listen to him in everything he commands you. And it shall be that every soul that does not listen to that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from the people”; and spoken still more fearfully and explicitly by John the Baptist, than whom none is greater among those born of women: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; but whoever disobeys the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” And so that such a death in baptism, and such a burial in it, may not cause grief by an expectation of corruption and destruction, but the newness of life may go beyond the sowing of a seed and confirm the hope of the glorious resurrection, he adds, “For if we have been planted together with him in the likeness of his death, we shall be in that of the resurrection also.” For if, having died and been buried with Christ in such a likeness of death, we walk in newness of life, we do not await the corruption of deadness, but imitate a burial that is like a planting of seeds. Putting ourselves to death to things forbidden and showing the faith that works through love, we become worthy to say the same words as the Apostle, with hope of the same things: “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our humiliation to be conformed to the body of his glory, by the working by which he is able even to subject all things to himself. And so we shall always be with the Lord.” For our Lord Jesus Christ himself asks of the Father, saying, “Grant, Father, that where I am …”; and … to write these things: “For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, shall certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.”

And so in those who now keep the words, “For if we have been planted together with him in the likeness of his death,” the promise is then fulfilled: “we shall be in that of the resurrection also”; as he says elsewhere too, “For if we died with him, we shall also live with him; if we endure, we shall also reign with him.” The Apostle knows that saying the same things again is more profitable to the hearers for their safety, and that repetition produces a firmer full assurance of the truth; for we hear him say, “To write the same things to you is not troublesome to me, and for you it is safe.” As we have also learned from Joseph, who judged that the dream had been given to King Pharaoh twice, so the Apostle too, imitating the account of the dream, hands down the same doctrine of baptism in the same way as his first points, saying, “Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.” So through these words too we are taught that the one baptized in Christ is baptized into his death, and is not only buried with Christ and planted with him, but first crucified with him; so that in this too we may learn that, just as one who is crucified is cut off from the living, so too the one crucified with Christ in the likeness of death is wholly cut off from those who live according to the old man. For the Lord commands us to beware of the false prophets, and the Apostle says, “that you keep away from every brother who walks in disorder and not according to the tradition that they received from us.” For the name “old man” signifies all the individual sins and defilements together, as if they were its members.

And just as one who has been crucified, having received the sentence of death, has parted from those who once lived with him, being raised higher than those who creep on the earth, so too the one crucified with Christ through baptism is set free from all who live according to this age, having lifted up his mind to the heavenly way of life, so that he can say with truth and with the boldness that is in Christ, “For our citizenship is in heaven.” And again he adds, “For one who has died has been justified from sin,” that is, set free, liberated, and cleansed of every sin, not only in deeds and words, but even in the thought that clings with passion. And in another place he declared in writing, “And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” We crucify it, plainly, we who are baptized in the water, which is a likeness of the cross and of death, of burial and of resurrection from the dead, as it is written. And again: “Put to death,” he says, “your members that are on the earth” (meaning, by all means, that we keep the covenants made in baptism afterward as well), “sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry, on account of which the wrath of God comes”; and not only that, but he added more generally, “upon the sons of disobedience.” So not even transient pleasure, which soils the mind, should any longer trouble the one who has been planted together with Christ in the likeness of his death, and who, by hating and abhorring every wickedness, even to the thought that clings with passion, shows purity of heart; as David says, “A crooked heart did not cleave to me; when the wicked one turned aside from me, I did not know him,” since surely he did not even turn toward him when he drew near. Having been planted together in the likeness of his death, we are surely raised with Christ as well (for that is what the planting signifies in consequence). Now we are conformed in the inner man, after the measure of the incarnation, in newness of life and in obedience unto death, in full assurance of the truth of his words, so that we may become worthy to say with truth, “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me”; and in the future, as the same Apostle affirmed, saying, “For if we died with him, we shall also live with him; if we endure, we shall also reign with him.” Equally with these he gives us assurance in saying, “For if we have been planted together with him in the likeness of his death, we shall be in that of the resurrection also.” And again, teaching us the same doctrine of such a baptism in a way that shames and compels us more, he adds, “Christ, being raised from the dead, no longer dies; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also, consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

The Apostle, then, having added the dispensation of our Lord Jesus Christ himself for the forgiveness of our sins, through his incarnation even unto death, teaches us, in a way that shames and compels us more, decisively to be dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus; so that, just as Christ, having died for us and been raised from the dead on our behalf, no longer dies, so we too, baptized into death in the likeness, may die to sin, and, through the coming up out of the baptism, as if raised from the dead, may live to God in Christ Jesus and no longer die, that is, no longer sin; for “the soul that sins, it shall die.” And just as death has no dominion over him, so let sin no longer have dominion over us, that is, let us no longer commit it. And since “whoever commits sin is a slave of sin,” let us, having been cut off from such slavery in every way, as the Apostle showed when he said, “And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires,” live to God in Christ Jesus, who set us free, as it is written: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us”; and, plainly, far earlier from sin, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, as it is written: “For as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so through the obedience of the one the many will be made righteous.” “Stand firm, then,” he says, “and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” And just as he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God, so let us too, having died to sin once for all in the baptism of water, which is a likeness of the cross and of death, guard ourselves and no longer return to sin. Let us continue living to God in Christ Jesus, who said, “Whoever serves me, let him follow me,” by keeping, first, the command of the Lord himself, who said, “Let your light so shine before people, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven,” and then the instruction of the Apostle, who wrote, “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” Each of these is achieved if, with thoughts worthy of the heavenly calling, we live worthily of the Gospel of Christ and can say truthfully, “For the love of Christ constrains us, because we have judged this, that if one died for all, then all died; and he died for all, so that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them.” And so this is achieved: “Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.”

“Giving no offense in anything, so that our ministry may not be blamed, but in everything commending ourselves as servants of God”: so let us show the promise made in baptism to be without falsehood and true, by keeping what the Apostle said by way of exhortation to those who have been planted together with Christ and raised with him: “Let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal body, to obey it in its desires. Do not present your members to sin as weapons of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as alive from the dead, and your members to God as weapons of righteousness.” And again: “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God; set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on the earth.” In this way, I think, the Apostle has clearly set out for us, through the few passages recalled, the great grace of God’s measureless love for humankind, a grace that went before us and can never be repaid, in the love of Christ Jesus our Lord, whose obedience unto death became for us, as it is written, redemption from sins, freedom from the death that has reigned through the trespass of old, reconciliation to God, power to please God, the gift of righteousness, fellowship with the saints in eternal life, the inheritance of the kingdom of heaven, and the prize of countless other good things. And through what he added in connection he has wisely and powerfully handed down to us the teaching of the baptism in water into the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. Through these words he taught us to make ourselves safe, so as not to receive so great and such a grace in vain, saying what I quoted before: “Let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal body, to obey it in its desires. Do not present your members to sin as weapons of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as alive from the dead, and your members to God as weapons of righteousness,” and what follows.

Through these words he wholly separated us from all sin and from the righteousness according to the law, and brought us more forcefully to the righteousness according to God, through a more fearful threat and a good and more desirable promise, when he said, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” And he teaches us to imitate … and to rise above … righteousness, adding: “Or do you not know, brothers (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a person for as long as he lives? For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives; but if the husband dies, she is released from the law of the husband. So then, if she joins another man while her husband lives, she will be called an adulteress; but if the husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress if she joins another man. So, my brothers, you too were put to death to the law through the body of Christ, so that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. For while we were in the flesh, the passions of sins, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we have been released from the law, having died to that in which we were held, so that we serve in newness of spirit and not in oldness of letter,” and what follows. Through these words we are taught to wonder at the indescribable love of God for humankind in Christ Jesus, and with greater dread to keep ourselves clean from every defilement of flesh and spirit.

The difference between the spirit and the letter he shows by a declaration in another place, where he compares the law and the Gospel, saying, “For the letter kills, but the spirit gives life.” He calls the law “letter,” as what is written before and after makes plain, and the teaching of the Lord “spirit,” since the Lord himself said, “My words are spirit and are life.” Now if the righteousness according to the law, when pursued by some of those who in baptism have confessed to God that they no longer live for themselves but for him who died and was raised for them, brings on them the judgment of adultery, as has been clearly shown by what was said before, what would one say about human traditions? About the righteousness according to the law the same Apostle declares more forcefully, saying, “But indeed I count all things as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I count them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having my own righteousness that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ Jesus, the righteousness from God.” About human traditions, then, the judgment is plain from the Lord’s words; and about one’s own reasonings in human wisdom the Apostle taught that they must be pulled down with a harder fight, saying, “For the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly, but powerful before God …, destroying … and every high thing raised up against the knowledge of God.” Or, in general, about the righteousness that seems right to each person, even if it is done for God’s sake or with zeal; of which the same Apostle says again, “For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to the righteousness of God.” So from these and such passages the judgment on those who wish to be clever about the judgments of God is plain. For it is written, “Woe to those who are wise in themselves and knowing in their own sight”; and the Lord declared more plainly that whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like the child will never enter it. Therefore we must be clean of all these together: the desires of the devil, the distractions of the world, human traditions, and our own wills, even if they seem more respectable and are defended by the law, if they cause even a brief delay in the most eager zeal owed to the will of God; so that those who in such a baptism have confessed that they have been crucified with Christ, have died with him, been buried with him, planted with him, and raised with him, may have the boldness to say with truth, “I have been crucified to the world (and much earlier to the devil), and the world to me. I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” So the Apostle teaches a righteousness beyond that according to the law, so that we may be counted worthy of the kingdom of heaven.

It would be time, then, for us to come to an understanding, to gain insight through faith in Christ, and to know what it is to be baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. First, then, it is necessary to recognize the glory of the one named by each name in its own way; then to know that the Lord himself makes clear what it is to be baptized in the name of the Holy Spirit, saying, “What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the spirit is spirit.” So, taking the sequence of birth according to the flesh as an example, we are taught the doctrine of godliness clearly and truly from the more familiar thing, knowing and being exactly persuaded that, just as what is born of something according to the flesh is of the same kind as that from which it was born, so we too, being born of the Spirit, must become spirit. Spirit, however, not according to the great glory of the Holy Spirit, which the human mind cannot grasp, but according to the glory glimpsed dimly in the distribution of God’s gifts through his Christ to each for the common good, and in the working of all of them, and likewise in other sayings; and according to the remembering and the teaching of the commandments of God proclaimed through our Lord Jesus Christ, as our Lord Jesus Christ himself said, “He will teach you, and remind you of all that I said to you.” Then the Apostle hands down more fully by what kind of mind one becomes spirit, writing at one time, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience,” and what follows, having said before, “But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law”; and elsewhere, “If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit”; at another time, “Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: if prophecy, according to the proportion of faith; if service, in serving,” and what follows.

Through these and such words the Lord says that those born of the Spirit become spirit. And the Apostle bears witness with him, saying, “For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he may grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell.” And if, living by the Spirit, we also walk by the Spirit, and so become able to receive the Holy Spirit, we can confess Christ, since no one can say “Lord Jesus” except in the Holy Spirit. So, then, the Lord taught, both through himself and through the Apostle, that those born of the Spirit become spirit. In this too we shall again imitate birth according to the flesh. First, we change our place and transform our manner of life, through the inner man being strengthened by the Spirit, so that we can say, “But our citizenship is in heaven,” dragging the body about on the earth like a shadow, but keeping the soul a fellow citizen with the heavenly beings. Then we also exchange our companions on earth. For David said, “The one who slanders his neighbor in secret, him I drove away. With the one of proud eye and insatiable heart, with him I did not eat. My eyes are on the faithful of the land, that they may sit with me; the one who walks in a blameless way, he ministered to me. The one who acts proudly did not dwell in the midst of my house. The one who speaks unjust things did not prosper before my eyes”; and likewise elsewhere. And the Apostle commands more weightily, “If anyone who is called a brother is sexually immoral, or greedy, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler, do not even eat with such a one.”

The same Apostle often lays down like things against like, and, after first describing the great and glorious grace of Christ’s love for humankind, he hands down clearly and securely with whom, and with what kind of people, we must associate, saying, “For he himself is our peace, who made both one and broke down the dividing wall of the fence, the enmity, in his flesh, abolishing the law of commandments in ordinances, so that he might create the two in himself into one new man, making peace, and might reconcile both in one body to God through the cross, having killed the enmity by it. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.” So, having been planted together with Christ in the likeness of his death, baptized in the name of the Holy Spirit, born from above in the inner man by the renewal of the mind, and built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, we may in this way become worthy to be baptized in the name of the only-begotten Son of God and be counted worthy of the great gift which the Apostle has handed down, saying, “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all.”

For it is necessary, and it follows, that one who has been born should also be clothed; only it must be as with a panel. Whatever its material, the panel puts away its unevenness and has its roughness planed off, and so it is clothed with the painting of the king’s image. Then no difference in the image is recognized from the difference of wood or gold or silver; but the image, achieved with much care, by a skill worthy of note, in exactness of likeness to the original, hides the difference of the material, however far apart the materials stood, draws the viewers to its own glory, and becomes more honored than any ruler or authority. So too the one who is baptized, whether Jew or Greek, male or female, slave or free, Scythian or barbarian, or called by any other difference of race, having put off the old man with his deeds in the blood of Christ, and having put on, through Christ’s teaching in the Holy Spirit, the new man created according to God in righteousness and holiness of the truth, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of the one who created him, may become worthy to attain to the good pleasure of God which the Apostle handed down, saying, “For we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.”

For then, having put on the Son of God, he is counted worthy of the perfect stage, and is baptized into the name of the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ himself; as John testifies, Christ gives authority to become children of God, of the God who says, “Come out from their midst and be separate, and touch nothing unclean; and I will welcome you, and you shall be to me sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.” This is by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ himself, the only-begotten Son of the living God, “in whom neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but faith working through love,” as it is written. Through this faith there is happily achieved in us what the same Lord Jesus Christ added in connection with the command of baptism, saying, “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” The Lord himself defined the keeping of these as the proof of love for him, saying, “If you love me, keep my commandments”; and again, “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me”; and again, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him.” And more forcefully, and in a way that shames us more, he says, “Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I too have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.” But if the keeping of the commandments is the necessary proof of love, there is a still stronger reason for fear: without love, the working of glorious gifts and of the highest powers, faith itself at its highest working, and even the commandment that makes perfect, are of no profit. For Paul the apostle himself, who speaks in Christ, says, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become a sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And if I give away all my possessions in morsels, and if I hand over my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.” This, I reckon, he said decisively, remembering that the Lord said, “Many will come on that day, saying, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name, and eat and drink in your presence, and you taught in our streets?’” and he answers them, “I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.”

So it is clear and indisputable that without love, even if the commands and ordinances are carried out, the Lord’s commandments kept, and the great gifts put to work, they will be reckoned works of lawlessness; not because of the nature of the gifts and ordinances, but because of the aim of those who use them for their own wills. For the Apostle says at one time, “supposing that godliness is a means of gain”; at another, “Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will; the former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, thinking to add affliction to my chains”; and elsewhere, “For we are not,” he says, “like the many, peddling the word of God.” And again, in denial, he says, “For we never came to you with a word of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed (God is witness), nor seeking glory from people, whether from you or from others, though we could have made demands as apostles of Christ.” Through these and such passages the justice of the Lord’s answer, “Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness,” is plainly shown: they traded on the gifts of God for their own wills. It is as if someone were to use his medical instruments and preparations, made for curing illnesses and caring for health and safety, for murder, and did not keep the Apostle’s instruction, “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” By every account, then, care of the inner man is necessary, so that the mind may be undistracted and, as it were, made one with the aim of the glory of God; so that, keeping the Lord’s command, “Make the tree good and its fruit good,” and again, “Blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup, and then the outside of it also will be wholly clean,” we may bear fruit from the abundance of a good heart, one a hundredfold, one sixty, one thirty, whether in deeds or in words, to the glory of God and of his Christ, everywhere taking care not to grieve the Holy Spirit; and so we may escape the judgment of the same Lord, who said, “Woe to you, for you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness; so you also outwardly appear righteous to people, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”

Therefore one must become a disciple before baptism, first removing what hinders discipleship, and so making oneself fit for discipleship. For our Lord Jesus Christ himself confirmed by examples the sentence he had given before, and again added as doctrine, “So therefore any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple”; and again, by way of command, “If anyone comes to me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me”; and again, decisively, “Whoever does not take up his cross daily and follow after me is not worthy of me.” When, through these and such fiery words of our Lord Jesus Christ, who said, “I came to cast fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!”, the wickedness of sins has been made evident and the virtue of the deeds achieved for the glory of God and of his Christ has been made plain, we come without fail to desire and confess what the Apostle said: “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord,” who said, “This is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins”; as the Apostle testifies, saying, “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of trespasses.” And then we come to the baptism in water, which is a likeness of the cross, of death, of burial, of resurrection from the dead, making covenants and keeping those sealed by the Apostle himself in the passage about such a baptism, where he says, “Knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, no longer dies; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also, consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal body, to obey it in its desires, and do not present your members to sin as weapons of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as alive from the dead, and your members to God as weapons of righteousness,” and what follows.

Then one is counted worthy to be baptized in the name of the Holy Spirit and, having been born from above, to change one’s place, manner of life, and companions; so that, walking by the Spirit, we may be counted worthy to be baptized in the name of the Son and to put on Christ. For one who has been born must also be counted worthy of clothing, as the Apostle said, “As many …” “… these promises, then, beloved,” says the Apostle, “let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” And again he commands, saying, “Do all things without grumbling and disputing, so that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, as a boast for me in the day of Christ.” And again: “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God; set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on the earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, our life, appears, then you too will appear with him in glory”: the glory promised by the Lord himself, who said, “Then the righteous will shine like the sun.”

That one who has been born again through baptism must from then on be nourished by partaking of the divine mysteries.

By the grace of the good God, through the remembrance of the words of the only-begotten Son of the living God, of his holy evangelists and prophets, and of the Apostle, which have made the teaching about the baptism according to the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ sufficiently clear to us, we have been taught that the baptism in fire exposes all wickedness and receives the righteousness according to Christ, producing hatred of wickedness and desire for virtue. Through faith we were cleansed from all sin by the blood of Christ; and, baptized in the water into the death of the Lord, we made, as it were, a written confession that we have been put to death to sin and to the world and made alive to righteousness. And so, baptized in the name of the Holy Spirit, we were born from above; having been born, and baptized in the name of the Son, we put on Christ; and having put on the new man, created according to God, we were baptized in the name of the Father and proclaimed children of God. From now on, then, we need to be fed with the food of eternal life, which the same only-begotten Son of the living God has also handed down to us. At one time he said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes out through the mouth of God”; and how this comes about he taught when he said, “My food is to do the will of the Father who sent me.” And again, adding the second “Amen” to confirm what follows and to assure the hearers, he says, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is truly food, and my blood is truly drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.” And a little later it is written: “Many of his disciples, then, when they heard this, said, ‘This saying is hard; who can listen to it?’ But the Lord, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, ‘Does this offend you? What then if you were to see the Son of Man ascending where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh profits nothing. My words are spirit and are life. But there are some of you who do not believe.’ For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who believed, and who it was who would betray him. And he said, ‘This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father.’ After this many of his disciples went back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the Twelve, ‘Do you also want to go away?’ Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life, and we have believed and have come to know that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’” And near the end of the Gospels it is written: “Jesus, then, took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, ‘Take, eat; this is my body, which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ And taking the cup and giving thanks, he gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink of it, all of you; for this is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in remembrance of me.’” And the Apostle testifies to these things, saying, “For I received from the Lord what I also handed down to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks he broke it and said, ‘This is my body, which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this in remembrance of me.’ For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” What, then, is the profit of these words? That, as we eat and drink, we may always remember him who died and was raised for us, and so be taught that we must keep before God and his Christ the doctrine handed down by the Apostle, when he said, “For the love of Christ constrains us, because we have judged this, that if one died for all, then all died; and

he died for all, so that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them.” For one who eats and drinks, plainly for an indelible remembrance of Jesus Christ our Lord, who died and was raised for us, but does not fulfil the meaning of the remembrance, the Lord’s obedience unto death, according to the teaching of the Apostle, who said, as was quoted before, “For the love of Christ constrains us, because we have judged this, that if one died for all, then all died” (which we confessed in baptism), “and he died for all, so that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them,” has no profit, according to the sentence of the Lord, who said, “The flesh profits nothing.”

Such a person also brings upon himself the judgment of the Apostle, who says, “Whoever eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks judgment on himself, not discerning the body of the Lord.” For not only does the one who comes to the holy things unworthily, in defilement of flesh and spirit, have a fearful judgment (for by coming he becomes guilty of the body and blood of the Lord); so too does the one who eats and drinks idly and without profit, because he does not keep, through the remembrance of Jesus Christ our Lord, who died and was raised for us, the saying, “The love of Christ constrains us, because we have judged this, that if one died for all, then all died,” and what follows. For as one who, without awareness and without profit, makes so great and such a good thing of no effect, and approaches such a mystery as if ungratefully, he incurs the judgment of idleness. For the Lord did not allow even those who let fall an idle word to go unjudged, and he set out the judgment of idleness more forcefully through the one who kept his talent intact in idleness; and the Apostle has handed down to us that even one who brings out a good word, but does not manage it for the building up of the faith, grieves the Holy Spirit. So we ought to perceive the judgment on one who eats and drinks unworthily. And if even the one who grieves his brother by food has fallen from love, without which even great gifts and righteous deeds, when they are performed, profit nothing, what would one say of the one who dares to eat the body and drink the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ idly and without profit, and so grieves the Holy Spirit still more, and dares to eat and drink without the love that constrains us to judge that we should not live for ourselves but for Christ Jesus our Lord, who died and was raised for us? The one who comes to the body and blood of Christ, in remembrance of him who died and was raised for us, must therefore not only be clean from every defilement of flesh and spirit, so as not to eat and drink to judgment, but must also show in action the remembrance of him who died and was raised for us, by being dead to sin, to the world, and to himself, and living to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Question 1. Whether everyone who has been baptized with the baptism in the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is under obligation to be dead to sin and to live to God in Christ Jesus.

If all of us who desire the kingdom of God lay claim to the grace of baptism and need it alike and of necessity, according to the Lord’s sentence, “Unless one is born of water and spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God,” then we are all alike under obligation to walk by the same rule of baptism. For the Apostle says to all the baptized in common, “Or do you not know, brothers, that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death, so that, as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life,” and what follows. In another place he hands down such a doctrine to us more pointedly and more clearly, saying, “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither slave nor free; there is no male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” So too he says again to all, “In whom also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith.” So everyone who has been baptized with the baptism of the Gospel is under obligation to live according to the Gospel, also because of what he said elsewhere: “I testify again to every man who is circumcised that he is under obligation to keep the whole law.”

So it is clearly established that everyone who has been baptized with the one baptism, as it is written, is equally under obligation, according to the word of him who died and was raised for us, to fulfil what was written by the Apostle himself: “For the love of Christ constrains us, because we have judged this, that if one died for all, then all died; and he died for all, so that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them.” For if one who has been circumcised in a part of the body, with the circumcision according to Moses, is under obligation to keep the whole law, how much more is one who has been circumcised with the circumcision according to Christ, by putting off the whole body of the sins of the flesh, as it is written, under obligation to fulfil what the Apostle said: “I have been crucified to the world, and the world to me; I no longer live, but Christ lives in me”? So the one who has truly been baptized into the death of Christ, according to the Apostle’s word, has put himself to death to the world, and much earlier to sin, according to what the Apostle said in his discussion of baptism: “Our old man was crucified with him, so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.” And he has made an inviolable covenant to follow the Lord in all things, which is to live wholly to God, fulfilling throughout what the Apostle said: at one time, “I urge you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable worship,” and what follows; at another, “Let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal body, to obey it in its desires; do not present your members to sin as weapons of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as alive from the dead, and your members to God as weapons of righteousness.” Among these and such doctrines he says again, “There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither slave nor free; there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus,” so that we may all become worthy, as one, to hear, “Come, good servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will set you over many; enter into the joy of your Lord.” We are counted worthy of this joy if each of us, in the state in which he was called and received his portion, multiplies the grace allotted to him with greater care and untiring zeal, as it is written.

Question 2. Whether it is without danger to act as priest without being clean in heart from an evil conscience, or from uncleanness, or from defilement.

Moses, giving a type to the people of that time, but for our admonition, writes in the law given by God: “And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Say to Aaron: Any man of your race throughout your generations who has a blemish in himself shall not approach to offer the gifts to his God; for every man in whom there is a blemish shall not approach.’” In what follows he explains the blemish: there is to be no mingling of foreign members, nor the breaking of any single one of a man’s own members, even in part, though such a thing hinders not so much the performance of the service as its seemliness or completeness. But the Lord, saying, “Something greater than the temple is here,” teaches us that the one who dares to minister as priest the body of the Lord, who gave himself for us as an offering and sacrifice to God for a fragrant aroma, is more impious by as much as the body of the only-begotten Son of God surpasses rams and bulls: not by way of comparison, for the superiority is beyond comparison. And now a blemish or maiming is not seen in the members of the body, but is recognized in the requirements of godliness according to the Gospel, when a commandment is carried out with a near miss, or deficiently, or not in the way that pleases God, as if a scar or a leprosy of human judgment showed on the commandment. It is necessary, then, always, but especially at the time of so great and such a mystery, to keep the instruction of the Apostle, who said, “Having these promises, then, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God; giving no offense in anything, so that the ministry may not be blamed, but in everything commending ourselves as servants of God.” So one may become worthy to perform the sacred rite of the Lord’s mystery according to the Gospel of God.

Question 3. Whether it is without danger for someone who is not clean from every defilement of flesh and spirit to eat the body of the Lord and drink his blood.

God in the law laid down the extreme penalty against anyone who dared to touch the holy things in uncleanness; for it is written, as a type for them but for our admonition: “And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Speak to Aaron and to his sons, and let them keep away from the holy things of the sons of Israel, and they shall not profane my holy name in the things they consecrate to me. I am the Lord. Say to them: Throughout their generations, any man from all your offspring who approaches the holy things that the sons of Israel consecrate to the Lord while his uncleanness is upon him, that soul shall be utterly destroyed from my presence. I am the Lord.’” If such a threat is laid down against those who simply approach things consecrated by human beings, what would one say against one who dares to approach so great and such a mystery? For by as much as something greater than the temple is here, according to the Lord’s word, by so much is it more terrible and fearful to dare to touch the body of Christ in defilement of soul than to touch rams or bulls. For the Apostle said, “So whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.” And setting out the judgment by repetition both more forcefully and more fearfully, he says, “But let each examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For whoever eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks judgment on himself, not discerning the body of the Lord.” If one who is merely in uncleanness (the character of uncleanness we learn as a type from the law) has so fearful a judgment, how much more will one who is in sin and dares to approach the body of the Lord draw on himself a more terrible judgment? Let us then be clean from every defilement (the difference between defilement and uncleanness is plain to those of sound mind), and so approach the holy things, so that we may escape the judgment of those who killed the Lord, since “whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord”; and that we may have eternal life, as our Lord and God Jesus Christ, who does not lie, promised; if, as we eat and drink, we remember him who died for us, and keep the judgment of the Apostle, who said, “For the love of Christ constrains us, because we have judged this, that if one died for all, then all died; and he died for all, so that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them.” To this we pledged ourselves in baptism.

Question 4. Whether one must believe every word of God and be persuaded, in full assurance of the truth, of what is said, even if some word or deed is found, whether of the Lord himself or of the saints themselves, that seems to be contrary.

The question is altogether unworthy of anyone who has undertaken to confess our Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of the living God, through whom all things were made, both visible and invisible, and who speaks the words that he heard from the Father. Yet we must answer, obeying the Apostle, who wrote, “Be ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you for an account of the faith that is in you.” And so that we may not cause doubt in the hearers by saying anything of our own, let us recall the Lord himself saying, “Amen, amen, I say to you, not one iota or one stroke will pass from the law until all is accomplished”; and again, “It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one stroke of the law to fall.” And if something greater than Solomon is here, and something greater than Jonah is here, it follows that something greater than Moses is here too; for the Apostle, after describing the glory of Moses, which the Israelites could not approach, in comparison with the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, added, “What was glorified has not been glorified in this respect, because of the surpassing glory. For if what was being done away with came with glory, much more is what remains in glory.” So, even if we have been taught by what has been said to know and confess more firmly what is said in the Gospel, still let us again, in undoubting faith, recall the Lord himself saying, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” The Lord’s words would indeed have sufficed, more than anything, to establish our hearts by the Holy Spirit and the guiding Spirit, so that we hold firm and unshaken concerning every word that comes out through the mouth of God; but to help the weakness of some, it would be fitting to set out also the testimony of one or two out of many. David says, “Faithful are all his commandments, established for ever and ever, made in truth and uprightness”; and again, “The Lord is faithful in all his words, and holy in all his works”; and many such things. And Jehu said, in the books of Kingdoms, “See that no word of the Lord will fall to the ground.”

As for the things that seem to contain some contradiction, it is better to pass sentence on oneself, as not yet having come to understand the riches of wisdom, and because it is hard to reach the unsearchable judgments of God, than to become liable to the judgment on rashness and presumption, and to hear, “Impious is he who says to a king, ‘You act lawlessly’”; and, “Who will bring a charge against God’s elect?” And even if most things seem to most people to have a plain solution, still, in the things that seem to contain a contradiction, we must observe this. When some word or deed seems to be contrary to a command, each one must obey the command, and not lay blame on the depth of the riches and of the wisdom, or make excuses for sins; for this, we have learned from the divinely inspired Scriptures, is pleasing to God and without danger. When one command seems to be contrary to another, we must learn the circumstances of each and read the whole passage, and so recognize that there is no conflict, and keep what fits each case, for the goal of the upward calling, toward which both commands tend: some cure a sickness, others bring about progress that leads to perfection in pleasing God. So the Lord says at one time, “No one, after lighting a lamp, hides it under the bushel, but puts it on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. So let your light shine before people, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven”; and at another, “But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.”

And you could find many such things in the evangelists and in the Apostle. If a commandment is given but how it is to be done is not added, let us heed the Lord, who says, “Search the Scriptures,” and imitate the apostles, who asked the Lord himself for the explanation of what he had said; and let us learn what is true and saving from what he said in another place. So with “Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven”: we are taught both from what was commanded the young man, when the Lord himself said, “Sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven,” and from what was said to those who desire to inherit the kingdom of heaven: “Do not fear, little flock, for your heavenly Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give alms; make for yourselves purses that do not grow old, a treasure in the heavens that does not fail.” And if danger also attends the keeping of the commandment, which is our boast, let us remember the Apostle, who said, “It would be better for me to die than that anyone should make my boast empty”; and elsewhere more fully, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?” and what follows. By these words we are taught more forcefully to keep the commandments and to give greater proof of our love for the Lord, who said, “Whoever loves me will keep my commandments,” and often in like words. In the rest we are taught to imitate the Apostle and say, “O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and how inscrutable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord,” who came down from heaven and announced to us the words of the Father? Him it is necessary and saving to believe, as children believe their parents and pupils their teachers, according to the word of our Lord Jesus Christ himself, who said, “Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.”

Question 5. Whether disobedience to any word deserves wrath and death, even if the threat is not attached specifically to each one.

Whether disobedience to any word deserves wrath and death has been discussed more fully in the letter on agreement. But to recall now too one or two testimonies out of many, let us hear John the Baptist saying, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; but whoever disobeys the Son” (the expression, left without limit, takes in everything) “shall not see life, but the wrath of God will remain on him”; and the Lord himself declaring decisively, “Not one iota or one stroke will pass from the law until all is accomplished.” If the things of the law are so, how much more the things of the Gospel? as the Lord himself often confirmed. On the point “even if the threat is not attached specifically to each one,” I think it enough for the faithful to recall what the Lord himself said in the passage of teaching that follows the beatitudes. There he mentioned many forbidden things. To some he added the threat as well, saying, “Everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever says ‘Raca’ will be liable to the council; whoever says ‘Fool’ will be liable to the hell of fire,” and many such things. To others he added none, as when he said, “Everyone who looks at a woman so as to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart,” and, “But I say to you, do not swear at all,” and a little later, “Let your word be ‘Yes, yes,’ ‘No, no’; what is more than these comes from the evil one.” Having said many such things without adding the particular punishment, he declared more generally against them all, first saying, “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven,” and at the end adding, “Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand; and the rain fell, and the rivers came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was its fall.”

In many places, having mentioned many sins, he did not add the punishment laid up for each, thinking the general statements, often made against them all, to be enough. But since the weaker need help, let us recall the Apostle too. For he also, imitating the Lord, said at one time, “If anyone who is called a brother is sexually immoral, or greedy, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler, do not even eat with such a one”; at another, “Do not lie to one another”; and elsewhere, “Let all anger and wrath and clamor and slander be put away from you, with all malice.” Having often said many such things without adding the threat, elsewhere he adds the punishment in a more general way, saying, “Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor men who lie with males, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.” Elsewhere again he writes more fully, “And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind, to do what ought not to be done, filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, greed, malice; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity; gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, implacable, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do them but also approve those who practice them. Therefore you are without excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in judging another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the same things.” And likewise in many places. From these it is shown that, even if in particular cases the threat of punishment is not attached to each kind of sin, we must of necessity recognize that whoever transgresses even one commandment falls, by an inescapable necessity, under the general sentence. For our Lord Jesus Christ declared, “Whoever rejects me and does not receive my words has one who judges him; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day,” and what follows, more fearfully still; and John the Baptist, than whom none is greater, testifies decisively, “Whoever disobeys the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God will remain on him.” For this is the custom of the divinely inspired Scripture in the Old Testament as well. Through Moses, who wrote many things in the law without adding the threat against the one who transgresses or neglects them, God added a general curse against all, which is the prelude to the most terrible punishment, saying, “Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all that is written in the book of this law.” And elsewhere: “Cursed,” it says, “is the one who does the works of the Lord negligently.” If the one who does them negligently is cursed, what then does the one who does not do them deserve?

Question 6. Whether disobedience lies in doing something forbidden, or also in leaving undone something approved.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, confirming this judgment more forcefully, to set aside the error that had prevailed before and to establish our hearts in sound faith, was pleased to teach us the fear of the judgments not only through words but also through examples, since facts produce the full assurance of the truth more readily. First he says, “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” And after the whole passage of his teaching he added a sentence with an example, saying, “Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand; and the rain fell, and the rivers came, and the winds blew and burst upon that house, and it fell, and great was its fall.” And again: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the vinedresser, ‘Look, for three years I have come seeking fruit on this tree and I find none. Cut it down; why should it use up the ground?’” And elsewhere he sets out this judgment more plainly, saying, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” And he gives as the reason, not the doing of anything forbidden, but the lack of approved works, saying, “For I was hungry and you gave me no food; I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,” and what follows. One could find many such passages to prove that it is not only those who do evil who are worthy of death (for them the unquenchable fire has been prepared, and with them are condemned also those who are idle in doing good), but also those who do good negligently. For it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does the works of the Lord negligently.”

It would be time to recall also John, who said to those who had received the forgiveness of sins through baptism, “Brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Bear fruit, then, worthy of repentance. And do not presume to say within yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father’; for I tell you that God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Already the axe is laid at the root of the trees. Every tree, then, that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” None of this points to the doing of some evil, but to idleness in the righteous requirement of godliness. For if everyone who does the works of the Lord negligently is cursed, because he did not do them with the zeal that was fitting, how much more are they cursed who did not consent to do the good at all? Justly they hear, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” So from all this it is clear that there is necessarily need of greater speed and of untiring zeal, with good and undistracted desire, in the commandments of our Lord Jesus Christ, so that we too may become worthy of the blessing, as our Lord Jesus Christ himself, the only-begotten Son of the living God, said: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”

Question 7. Whether it is possible, or pleasing, or acceptable to God for one who is a slave to sin to perform a righteous deed according to the rule of the godliness of the saints.

In the Old Testament God says, “The sinner who sacrifices a calf to me is like one who kills a dog, and the one who offers fine flour is like one who offers pig’s blood”; he laid down by law such exactness about what is offered in sacrifice, and set a fearful judgment against the one who offends. In the New Testament our Lord Jesus Christ said in person in the Gospels, “Whoever commits sin is a slave of sin”; and, “No one can serve two masters”; and, “You cannot serve God and mammon”; and he laid down as doctrine most plainly, “So any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.” If such is the sentence about things indifferent, what would one say about things forbidden? And through the Apostle he says, “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What agreement has Christ with Beliar? Or what portion has a believer with an unbeliever? What accord has the temple of God with idols?” So it has been shown that this is altogether impossible, displeasing to God, and dangerous to the one who dares it. Therefore, I urge you, as the Lord teaches, let us make the tree good and its fruit good, and first clean the inside of the cup and the dish, and then the outside also will be wholly clean. And, taught by the Apostle, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of flesh and spirit, and then perfect holiness in the love of Christ, so that we may become pleasing to God and acceptable to the Lord, for the kingdom of heaven.

Question 8. Whether the work of a commandment is acceptable to God when it is not done in accordance with God’s commandment.

On this question we are taught clearly, and given as it were a rule for every such matter, by the Old Testament, which says, as in the person of God, “If you offered rightly but did not divide rightly, you sinned. Be still; his turning is toward you.” So what was offered unlawfully was not only unacceptable, but was also reckoned as sin to the one who offered it so. By likeness, from the Apostle, it is possible to learn, as through a human example, the inviolable rule of godliness that holds universally for all, when he says, “Even if someone competes as an athlete, he is not crowned unless he competes lawfully.” With greater fear one may recall our Lord Jesus Christ himself, who set out a definition when he said, “Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find doing so.” By saying “so,” he showed that one who does not do so has fallen from the blessing, as one can learn exactly and be fully assured from many things recorded and said in both the Old and the New Testament. And “not so” happens in respect of place, or time, or person, or thing, or measure, or order, or disposition.

Let us look first at the matter of place. The Apostle made use of what prevails by custom to set out more clearly, and as a help to his hearers, what befits godliness, when he said, “Does not nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair it is a dishonor to him, but if a woman has long hair it is her glory?” and what follows. So it would be fitting for us too to use what prevails by nature in the necessities of the present life. For although eating and drinking sustain life, who of sound mind consents to eat and drink in the marketplace? Or who consents to throw seed upon rocks, to the loss of the seed itself and of the fruit expected? And one could find many things done out of place that are dangerous or are condemned. Again, recalling the Apostle, who said, “These things happened to them as types, and they were written for our admonition, on whom the ends of the ages have come,” let us see whether the things laid down by God in the law for godliness, though they had something in common with one another, did not keep their differences inviolably. Some were confined to Jerusalem, and those who did them outside it incurred danger. More than that, even within the temple itself and at the altar, and in Jerusalem itself or in other places, different things were approved for those engaged in the worship of God: no one dared to do in other places in Jerusalem what was done in the temple and at the altar, nor was what was done in other places allowed in the temple. For us, a commandment is endangered when it is done out of place, above all if we celebrate the mysteries of the priesthood in profane places. Such a thing is proof of the contempt of the one who celebrates them, and it causes scandal in many ways, leading one to one passion and another to another, because of the varying weakness of the many in knowledge.

If anyone says, “Why then did the Apostle say, ‘I want the men to pray in every place,’ since the Lord gave authority to worship in every place, when he said, ‘You will worship the Father neither in Jerusalem nor on this mountain’?”, one may answer this: “in every place” does not include the places set apart for human needs and for unclean and abominable things. Rather, it widens worship from the bounds of Jerusalem to every place in the world, and, according to the prophecy of the sacrifice, to every place plainly dedicated with care to God for the sacred celebration of the glorious mystery. For when we hear the prophet say, “You shall be called priests of God,” neither do we all seize the authority for such a priesthood or ministry, nor is anyone permitted to take to himself the grace given to another; but each of the faithful remains within the bounds of God’s gift to him. For the Apostle teaches us, saying to all, “I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable worship; and do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, so that you may discern what is the will of God, good and acceptable and perfect.” To each, however, he clearly distinguishes the ministry fitting for each, and forbids intrusion into another’s rank, saying, “For by the grace of God given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly than he ought to think, but to think so as to be sober-minded, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.” And through the good order that is necessarily kept among the members of the body for seemliness and safety, he regulates among us the good order toward one another that is pleasing to God, in the love of Christ Jesus, in the difference of gifts. For he says, “For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another; having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, if prophecy, according to the proportion of faith; if service, in serving,” and what follows.

If those who work together toward the one goal of pleasing God, and are so closely joined to one another in fellowship in the love of Christ, are not permitted to overstep the proper place of their gift, how much more ought we to keep the places set apart for alien and contrary things distinct from the holy ones? From all that has been recalled from the divinely inspired Scripture, and from such passages and from the examples given before, we must learn that activity out of place turns the end to the opposite of the goal set before us. As to time, one may hear our Lord Jesus Christ himself saying, “Therefore the kingdom of heaven is like ten virgins, who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were wise and five were foolish. The foolish, when they took their lamps, took no oil with them, but the wise took oil in their flasks. As the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a cry, ‘Here is the bridegroom; come out to meet him.’ Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ The wise answered, saying, ‘Perhaps there will not be enough for us and for you; go rather to those who sell and buy for yourselves.’ And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding feast, and the door was shut. Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ But he answered them, ‘Amen, I say to you, I do not know you.’ Watch, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”

Therefore, knowing that the warning about this same judgment, given often, strikes more forcefully and is more readily believed, I shall set beside it also what was said in another place to the same purpose. The Lord himself says, “Many will seek to enter and will not be able. When once the master of the house has gone in and shut the door, and you begin to say, ‘Lord, lord, open to us,’ then he will answer, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ Therefore I tell you, be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect”; and likewise in many places. And if the Apostle must also be called as a witness, let us hear him recalling, with the prophet, the words, “At an acceptable time I listened to you, and on a day of salvation I helped you,” and adding of his own, “Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation”; and again, “So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, and especially to those of the household of faith.” And if still another testimony is needed, let us recall David, who said, “For this every holy one will pray to you at a fitting time”; and Solomon, who laid it down for all things in common, “All things are good in their time.”

As to person: in the Old Testament, as with Korah and those who dared to intrude into the priesthood that had not been given to them, and fell under the severity of wrath into destruction and a most dreadful ruin. From the Lord himself we are taught to keep ourselves safe, when he said to the disciples, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” and to the woman, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” As to the thing: from the Old Testament, when the command was given to offer sacrifice from clean, whole, and unblemished animals, but the offering was not made from such; about which God said, “Offer it to your governor; will he accept it, will he show you favor?” From the New Testament: from our Lord Jesus Christ himself, who recalled Isaiah’s prophecy against the Jews, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men’”; and from the Apostle, who bears witness to the conscience of the Jews but condemns them for the difference of their righteousness. He writes thus: “For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to the righteousness of God.” Therefore the Apostle, who cared genuinely about pleasing God, after recounting the requirements of the law he had fulfilled to the highest degree, adds, “But indeed I count all things as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I count them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Jesus Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith, that I may know him,” and what follows. Through these and such passages he teaches us to beware all the more of ever bringing human righteousness into the rule of our Lord Jesus Christ for pleasing God.

As to measure, I think it enough to recall our Lord Jesus Christ, who, in contrast with the measure of the old love (for it is written, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”), said, “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” And in general, about all righteous requirements together, one may learn from the Lord himself, who laid it down: “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” As to order and sequence: when someone is eager for the first things in second or third place, and treats what was commanded in third place as the starting point of what was commanded before it. For the Lord commanded the one who said, “All these I have kept from my youth,” “Sell your possessions and give to the poor, and take up your cross, and come, follow me.” Suppose someone were to allow the second, “Follow me,” to one who has done none of what was commanded first; or, when the Lord says again, “If anyone comes to me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me,” were to put following before what was commanded first; or, when the Lord added after many things, “So any one of you who does not renounce what he has cannot be my disciple,” were to imagine himself a disciple before he had kept what was said first. Therefore it is necessary to keep the instruction of the Apostle, who said, “Let all things be done decently and in order.”

As to disposition: as when the Lord says of those who give alms, or do some other righteous deed, from the passion of pleasing people, so as to be seen by people, “Amen, I say to you, they have their reward.” And he sets out still more forcefully the wickedness of those who do the Lord’s commandment from a human passion, showing that the one who does a commandment, not from godliness, but from the wish to please people, or for the sake of some other pleasure, or of greed, or of business, not only loses his reward but also deserves punishment; such people the Apostle too accuses. The Lord himself, condemning such people more forcefully, says, “Many will come on that day, saying, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works, and eat and drink with you, and you taught in our streets?’ And then I will answer them, saying, ‘Depart from me; I do not know where you come from, you workers of lawlessness.’” So from these and such passages it is clear that, even if someone works gifts, even if he does commandments, but not with the disposition and aim the Lord taught when he said, “Let your light so shine before people, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven” (and Paul the apostle, who speaks in Christ, says, “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God”), he justly hears what the Lord answered. From this the Apostle learned to say, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become a sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophecy and know all mysteries, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And if I give away all my possessions in morsels, and if I hand over my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.” And elsewhere he says more generally and more forcefully, “If I were still pleasing people, I would not be a servant of Christ.”

And if you seek a testimony of the Old Testament as well, to be fully assured of such a judgment, Moses says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your mind and with all your strength; and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” To these the Lord adds, “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” The Apostle too testifies, saying, “Love, then, is the fulfilment of the law.” That those who do not achieve these, and the righteous requirements that fall under them, are not left unpunished but are liable to punishment, Moses himself cries out, saying, “Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all that is written in this book.” And David says, “If I regarded unrighteousness in my heart, let the Lord not hear me”; and elsewhere, “There they feared with fear where there was no fear, for God has scattered the bones of those who please people.” There is need, then, of much care and watchful concern, lest, having done the commandment amiss in any of the respects mentioned, we not only lose so great and such a reward, but also fall under such fearful threats.

Question 9. Whether one should have fellowship with those who transgress the law, or with the unfruitful works of darkness, even if such persons are not among those entrusted to me.

Everyone who has not kept the law whole, or who has transgressed even one commandment, is a transgressor of the law. For when even something small is lacking, the whole is endangered: what has almost happened has not happened. Just as one who almost died did not die but lives, and one who almost lived does not live but died, and one who almost entered did not enter, like the five virgins, so one who almost kept the law did not keep it, but is a transgressor. Therefore, in the case of transgressors, even if they seem to be true brothers, one must obey the Apostle, who said at one time, “If anyone who is called a brother is sexually immoral, or greedy, or a drunkard, or a reviler, or a swindler, do not even eat with such a one.” Here one must note that he excluded even from ordinary table fellowship not only the one who is all these things, but also the one who is any one of them, since he did not say “with this one,” but “with such a one.” At another time he said, “Put to death your members that are on the earth: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry, on account of which the wrath of God comes” (for he added it more generally) “upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not become partners with them”; and again, “that you keep away from every brother who walks in disorder and not according to the tradition that they received from us”; and likewise elsewhere.

As for not having fellowship with the unfruitful works, so that we may know clearly what this is, let us first learn to what kinds of things the name “unfruitful” is applied: whether only to things condemned, or also to things that are praiseworthy but not done from a sound disposition. In the Old Testament the prophet, in the parable of the tree, said of the saints, “which will yield its fruit in its season”; Solomon says, “The works of the righteous produce life, but the fruits of the ungodly are sins”; Hosea says, “Sow for yourselves for righteousness; gather the fruit of life”; and Micah, “And the land shall become a desolation, with those who dwell in it, because of the fruits of their doings”; and other prophets say many other things. But let these shine like a lamp; the true light, the sun of righteousness, our Lord Jesus Christ himself, sets it out more plainly, saying, “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a rotten tree bear good fruit”; and likewise elsewhere. Since, then, the name “fruits” is applied alike to things contrary to one another, let us next learn which trees are unfruitful, and what works the Apostle calls unfruitful. The unfruitful trees are shown to us by John the Baptist, who said to those who had been counted worthy of baptism for the forgiveness of sins and had been cleansed from all filth, “Bear fruit, then, worthy of repentance”; and a little later added, “Every tree, then, that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” The Lord teaches more clearly, saying to those standing on his right, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world,” and showing their good fruits in what follows; but sending those on the left into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. These he charges, not with doing sin, but with idleness in good fruits: “For I was hungry,” he says, “and you gave me no food,” and what follows. This idleness made them belong to the portion of the sinners, who are called angels of the devil by the Lord.

The difference, then, between those who bear contrary fruits and the unfruitful having been made plain, let us next see what in particular the Apostle calls unfruitful works. When I consider it, I find no one between the one who does the commandment lawfully and in a way pleasing to God, the one who does evil, and the one who does neither, except those who do good, but not in a way pleasing to God, failing in some one of the respects set out earlier in the question whether the work of a commandment is acceptable if it is not done according to the commandment; of these the Lord says that they have their reward. Such were the five foolish virgins. The Lord himself testifies of them that they were virgins, that they trimmed their lamps, and that they lit them, that is, they worked like the wise; they went out to meet the Lord, and in every respect showed zeal like the wise; but through the lack of oil in their flasks alone they missed their goal and were shut out from the entrance to the bridal chamber. So too with the ones who were left, of the two who were at the mill and the two on the same bed. In their case the Lord perhaps kept silent about the cause, so as to show that in every matter even a small lack of what is fitting, and above all of sincere love, as the Apostle taught, is not pleasing. Knowing, then, how works come to be unfruitful, let us take care that our lawful contest for pleasing God falls short in nothing, but that in everything we commend ourselves as servants of God. And not only that, but let us also not have fellowship with such people, as Paul, who speaks in Christ, declared decisively, saying, “Do not have fellowship with the unfruitful works of this darkness.” And by adding, “but instead even expose them,” he taught for the present the manner of not having fellowship.

Let us learn what it is to have fellowship, and in how many ways it happens. I recall in Proverbs, “Come with us, share in blood”; in the Apostle, “you are all partakers with me of grace,” and, “having shared in my affliction,” and, “Let the one who is taught the word share all good things with the one who teaches”; and, “If you saw a thief, you ran along with him, and you put your portion with adulterers”; and, “You shall surely reprove your brother, and you shall not incur sin because of him”; and, “These things you have done, and I kept silent; you supposed, in lawlessness, that I would be like you; I will reprove you and set your sins before your face”; and such passages. From them I take it that fellowship in deed is when people help one another toward the same goal in action; and fellowship in intention is when someone consents to the disposition of the doer and is pleased with it. But another fellowship, which escapes most people, is shown by the exactness of the divinely inspired Scripture: when a person neither works with the other nor consents to his disposition, but, knowing the wickedness of the intention from which he acts, keeps quiet and does not reprove him. So the passages written above show, and so does what the Apostle said to the Corinthians: “You did not mourn, so that the one who did this deed might be removed from your midst”; to which he added, “A little leaven corrupts the whole lump.” … saying, “Cleanse out the old leaven, so that you may be a new lump.” But one who works at something good with another, with a good intention, not knowing the wickedness of the other’s disposition and aim, will not be charged with fellowship for working with him; rather, by keeping apart from the other’s disposition and guarding himself within the rule of love for God, he receives his own reward according to his own labor, as our Lord Jesus Christ himself made plain to us in the man on the bed and the woman at the mill. The difference between those entrusted to me and those not lies in the obligation of care, not in fellowship in sins. Care is owed by me in a special way to those entrusted to me alone; but fellowship with evil and with unfruitful works is forbidden with regard to all alike.

Question 10. Whether causing others to stumble is always dangerous.

I think it necessary first to know what a stumbling block is; then also the difference among those who cause stumbling, and the means by which they do it; and so to recognize what is without danger and what is dangerous. A stumbling block, then, as I reckon, guided by what is written, is everything that leads to some apostasy from the truth according to godliness, or produces an invitation to error, or builds up toward ungodliness; or, in general, everything that hinders obedience to God’s commandment even unto death itself. If what is said or done is good in its own nature, but the sickness of the one who makes use of the deed or the word causes him harm in using it, then the one who said or did the good thing for the building up of the faith is clear of the judgment on those who are caused to stumble. So it was with the Lord. He said, “Not what goes into the mouth defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a person,” and he added, to those who were offended, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up.” He said, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life,” and a little later, “No one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father”; and some used these words for their own destruction, as it is written: “And many of the disciples, hearing this word, went back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the Twelve, ‘Do you also want to go away?’ Simon Peter answered, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life, and we have believed and have come to know that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’” For the very words that those who are sound in faith used for the building up of faith and the gaining of eternal salvation, those weak in knowledge or in faith, through their own wickedness, used as an occasion of destruction; as is written of the Lord, “This one is set for the fall and the rising of many”: not because of any contradiction of his with himself, but because of the opposed minds of those who make use of him; as the Apostle too says, “To some a fragrance from life to life, to others a fragrance from death to death.”

But if what is done or said is evil in its own nature, the one who did it or said it bears the judgment both of his own sin and of the stumbling block, even if the one before whom the stumbling block is laid is not caused to stumble. So we learn from the case of Peter, to whom the Lord said, when Peter was hindering him from fulfilling the dispensation of obedience unto death, “Get behind me, Satan; you are a stumbling block to me.” And the brief reason added taught the general marks of a stumbling block: “For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of men”; so that we may know that every mind contrary to the mind of God is a stumbling block, and, when it goes forth into action, bears the judgment of a murderer, according to what is written in Hosea the prophet: “The priests hid the way; they murdered Shechem, because they committed lawlessness among the people.” And if it is something permitted in its own nature, but is taken in a harmful way and becomes an occasion of stumbling to those weak in faith or knowledge, the one who did it does not escape the judgment of the stumbling block. For the Apostle says of such people, who do not spare the weak, “Thus, sinning against the brothers and wounding their weak conscience, you sin against Christ.” So, when either what is done, being evil in its own nature, becomes a cause of stumbling, or something permitted …, his neck and he were thrown into the sea, than that he should cause one of these little ones to stumble.” We have set this out more fully in the first questions, where the ways in which people are caused to stumble were also examined more clearly. Therefore the Apostle says about permitted things, “It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything by which your brother stumbles or is offended or is weakened”; and though he says elsewhere, “Every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving,” still he says, “I will never eat meat, so that I may not cause my brother to stumble.” If such is the judgment about permitted things, what would one say about forbidden things? Therefore he teaches us more generally, saying, “Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, just as I also please everyone in everything, not seeking my own advantage, but that of the many, that they may be saved.”

Question 11. Whether it is right, or without danger, to decline anything commanded by God, or to hinder one who has been ordered to do it, or to put up with those who hinder; especially if the one who hinders is a true friend, or a plausible reasoning stands against the command.

Since the Lord says, “Learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart,” it is plain that we are taught all things more securely by remembering our Lord Jesus Christ himself, the only-begotten Son of the living God. When John the Baptist said to him, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”, he answered, “Let it be so now; for thus it is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness.” And with the disciples: when Peter prayed that the trials which the Lord himself had foretold would come upon him in Jerusalem might be averted, the Lord said with some indignation, “Get behind me, Satan; you are a stumbling block to me; for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of men.” And again, when the same Peter declined the service out of a disposition of honor toward the Master, the Lord again said, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.” And if the soul needs more help from the examples of those of our own nature, let us recall the Apostle, who said, “What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be bound, but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” Who could seem more glorious than John, or more devoted than Peter, or what reasonings could seem more reverent than those that occurred to them? And I know that neither holy Moses nor Jonah the prophet, when they used reasonings to set aside obedience, remained blameless before God. By these examples we are taught neither to speak against a command, nor to hinder it, nor to put up with those who hinder it. If the word taught us once for all not to put up with these and such things, how much more is it necessary in all the rest to imitate the saints, who said at one time, “We must obey God rather than men,” and at another, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge. For we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.”

Question 12. Whether everyone is under obligation to care for all people in all things, or only for those entrusted to him; and for these according to the gift allotted to him by God through the Holy Spirit.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, through whom all things were made, visible and invisible, confessed, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”; he said to his own disciples, “As the Father sent me, I also have sent you”; and he commanded them not to go into the way of the Gentiles and not to enter a city of the Samaritans. Only after the prophecy of David had been fulfilled in him, spoken as in the person of God the Father, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as your possession,” did he command his disciples, “Go, make disciples of all the nations.” How much more, then, must each of us keep more exactly the instruction of the Apostle, who wrote, “not to think more highly than one ought to think, but to think so as to be sober-minded, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned,” and to wait for when and what is commanded; as he says again, “Each, brothers, in the state in which he was called, in that let him remain.” And the same Apostle, keeping more exactly what he commands others, says, “They gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcision.”

But if ever there is a need, when love for God or love for neighbor calls one to make up what is lacking, the one who obeys has the reward of voluntary obedience. Love for God and for his Christ calls when it is a matter of fulfilling the commandment of the Lord, who said, “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” Love for neighbor calls when the one entrusted with oversight needs help, or the company of those in his care needs someone to make up what is lacking; for the Apostle says, “Let no one seek his own, but each that of the other”; for love according to Christ does not seek its own; and elsewhere, “Build up one another, as you are doing.” So if someone has been sent for some purpose and has not fulfilled the preaching in deed and word, he is guilty of the blood of those who did not hear, and has no right to say the same as the Apostle, who solemnly testified to the elders of Ephesus, “I am clean, from now on, of the blood of all of you. For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.” But if he can do something more than what was commanded, for the building up of the faith in the love of Christ, he has a reward, which the Apostle showed us, saying, “For if I do this willingly, I have a reward; but if unwillingly, I have been entrusted with a stewardship.”

Question 13. Whether one must endure every trial, even if it carries the threat of death, in order to keep obedience to God, and especially in the care of those entrusted to one.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of the living God, through whom all things were made, visible and invisible, who has life just as the Father who gave it to him has it, who received all authority from the Father, went to meet those who came to arrest him for the death on behalf of our righteousness and eternal life with such readiness, saying, “Behold, the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us go; behold, the one who betrays me is at hand”; and, as is written in the Gospel according to John, “Jesus, then, knowing all that was coming upon him, went out and said to them, ‘Whom do you seek?’ They answered him, ‘Jesus the Nazarene.’ Jesus said to them, ‘I am he’”; and a little later, “I told you that I am he; so if you seek me, let these go.” If he did this, how much more ought we willingly to endure what belongs to our nature? So, conquering through obedience to God the trials brought on us by our enemies, we may glorify God, because we receive with joy, even to death, the painful things that seem to be brought on us by our enemies, having made our own the mind of the one who says, “To you it has been granted for the sake of Christ not only to believe in him but also to suffer for his sake.” The Acts proclaim the struggles of the apostles, recounting that they received insults and deaths with joy for the sake of fulfilling the preaching according to the commandment of the Lord.

The Apostle too teaches us, saying, “Who shall separate us from the love of God? Tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep for the slaughter.’ But in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor authorities, nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.” Love in Christ necessarily, and without omission, includes the keeping of the commandments, as the Lord himself said, “Whoever loves me will keep my commandments; but whoever does not keep my words does not love me”; and, “You are my friends if you do whatever I command you.” His new and particular commandment is to love one another; fulfilling it, the Apostle says, “So, longing for you, we were pleased to share with you not only the Gospel of Christ but also our own lives, because you had become beloved to us.” Looking, then, to Christ, let us intensify our zeal by a glorious imitation; and contemplating the saints, let us learn what is possible; so that, made more eager by these, and having kept every commandment of the Lord spotless and blameless until death, we may enter into eternal life and inherit the kingdom of heaven, as our Lord and God Jesus Christ, who does not lie, the only-begotten Son of the living God, has promised.