Commentary on Romans 4.8–4.9

"Having been justified, then, by faith, let us have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we also have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we boast in hope of the glory of God." Most openly by this he invites one who has understood what it is to be justified by faith and not by works to the peace of God which surpasses every mind, in which also the summit of perfection consists. But so that we may perceive the Apostle's meaning more carefully, let us search out what the name of peace means, and of that peace which is through our Lord Christ. Peace is said to be where no one disagrees, no one is at variance, where nothing hostile, nothing barbarous is done. We, then, who were once enemies of God, following the enemy and tyrant, the devil, if we now throw away his arms and take up the sign of Christ and the standards of his cross, certainly have peace with God, but through our Lord Jesus Christ, who reconciled us to God through the sacrifice of his blood, as it is written: "When we were enemies of God, we were reconciled through the blood of the cross of his Son." And elsewhere the same Paul added to these, saying: "We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God." If anyone, then, has peace with God through the blood of Christ, let him no longer touch the things that are hostile to God.

Do you want to hear what the things are that are hostile to God? Paul himself teaches you, who says: "The wisdom of the flesh is hostile to God, for it is not subject to the law of God." If, then, you are wise in a fleshly way, or expose your life to the desires of the flesh and are dissolved in an abundance of luxuries, or if you think of the understanding of the law in a fleshly and not a spiritual way, and defend this with assertions sought by human art rather than by spiritual grace and finer understanding, you are made an enemy of God through the wisdom of the flesh. Nor does Paul alone write these things in his letters: hear James too, the brother of the Lord, testifying to similar things, when he says: "Whoever wishes to be a friend of this world will be made an enemy of God." And John bears like witness: "Little children," he says, "do not love the world, nor the things that are in the world; for everything that is in the world is the desire of the flesh and the desire of the eyes and the pride of life, which is not from God." In whom these things are, then, he cannot have peace with God, but rouses up again those enmities for the dissolving of which Christ came, as the same Apostle says of Christ: "For he is our peace, who has made both one, and broken down the middle wall of the fence, the enmities, in his flesh, abolishing the law of commandments in decrees, so as to create the two in himself into one new man, making peace." And if Christ came to dissolve the enmities, to make peace, and, the fence of sin having been broken down, to reconcile to God us who were at variance because of the fence of wickedness that we had woven by sinning, one who turns again to sins without doubt repairs the enmities again and weaves the fence of dissension, and by these things undoes the work of Christ and makes void the cross of his passion.

But let us, "having been justified by faith, have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Let us have peace, so that the flesh no longer opposes the spirit, nor is the law of God resisted by the law of the members. Let there not be in us "yes and no," but let us all say one thing, think the same things, and let there be no dissension either within ourselves or outwardly toward one another; and then we will have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. But this must be known most certainly: that no one in whom is the vice of wickedness can ever have peace. For while he is always thinking how to harm his neighbor, while he is always seeking out the arts of injuring, his mind never stands in peace. And if you ask me how the righteous man can have peace, who is attacked by the devil, who sustains the wars of temptations, I would say rather that he above all others has peace. For see how carefully the Apostle writes. He did not say, "Having been justified by faith, let us have peace," and fall silent, but adds, "Let us have peace with God": knowing that war against the devil grants peace with God, and that we come more into the peace of God when we stand firm, unreconciled, against the devil, and when we fight against the vices of the flesh. Indeed the apostle James too says thus: "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you; draw near to God, and he will draw near to you." You see that he too held that one draws near to God when the devil is resisted.

"Let us have peace, then, with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." And he added: "Through whom we also have access into this grace in which we stand." How we have access to grace through our Lord Jesus Christ the Savior himself says: "I am the door"; and: "No one comes to the Father except through me." Through him, then, who is the door, we have access to grace. But let us see what kind of door it is, so that we may know what sort of people those must be who enter through it and have access to grace. This door is truth, and through the door of truth liars cannot enter. And again this door is righteousness, and through the door of righteousness the unrighteous do not go in. This door says: "Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart." Through the door of humility and meekness, then, neither the angry nor the proud goes in. If there is anyone, therefore, who, according to the Apostle's word, wishes to have access through our Lord Jesus Christ into the grace of the Lord, in which Paul, and any who are like him, says he stands, he must be cleansed of all these things we have mentioned above. Otherwise this door will not allow those to enter through it who do things alien to it, but is at once shut and does not let those unlike it pass through. This, no doubt, is what happened to those five foolish virgins, who, because they had not gathered the oil of good works in their vessels, coming after delays, found the door shut. For foolish souls could not enter through the door of wisdom and have access into grace.

And the apostle Paul rightly says that he stands in grace, who also said elsewhere: "But I labored more abundantly than all of them; yet not I, but the grace of God with me." Hence if there is anyone else who labors more abundantly, and who boasts in his weaknesses, who is often in dangers, "dangers of the sea, dangers of rivers, dangers of robbers, dangers among false brothers," and in all these always stands in faith, he likewise is said to stand in grace.

But let us see what kind of thing is what follows: "And we boast in hope of the glory of God." It moves me why he did not say that he boasts in the glory of God but "in hope of the glory of God"; in which something of the expression seems indeed to be lacking, so that it should be understood "in hope of seeing the glory of God." He teaches us by these words, as he says elsewhere too, that the things that are hoped for are eternal, but the things that are seen are temporary. For Moses too is said to have seen the glory of God; and the people too, at the consecration of the house of the Lord, are said to have seen the glory of the God of Israel. But of glory of this kind, which could be seen, Paul, who was acquainted with the mysteries of God, dared to declare that that glory will be destroyed, which was seen even on the face of Moses. But this glory which is hoped for, of which he says, "in hope of the glory of God," will never be destroyed. For it is such as that of which the same Apostle says, speaking of Christ: "Who is," he says, "the radiance of glory and the express image of his substance." The hope of seeing this glory, then, is borne by those of whom it is said, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God," at that time when pain and sorrow and sighing have fled away, and when the things that are now seen in a mirror and in a riddle are destroyed, and those things remain that are face to face.

And if it should perhaps seem to anyone that against this exposition of ours there can be objected what the Apostle himself says, "But we, beholding the glory of the Lord with unveiled face, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord," and he says: "How does one still have hope of glory who says that with unveiled face he already beholds the glory of the Lord and is transformed from glory to glory?": see whether we can resolve the objection in this way. The Apostle seems to me to show differences of glories: that the glory revealed by the ministry of Moses, of which we spoke above, was one; another was that which was ministered in the fleshly coming of the Savior, of which John too says in the Gospel: "And we saw his glory, glory as of the Only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth." Of this glory we cannot say that it is the one to be hoped for; for the apostles say they saw it; and true is that saying, "For what one sees, why does he hope for?" But that glory which is to be hoped for, of which in the present place too the Apostle says he boasts in hope of the glory of God, can be understood as that of which the Savior says in the Gospel: "When the Son of man comes in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels." And when he said, "of the Father and of the holy angels," it is not that he means the glory of God the Father and of the angels to be one; but this seems to me to show that those glories which were brought either to those before through Moses or to us through the coming of Christ in the flesh were not of angels but of men; for they were ministered to men, and they were of such measures as men could receive; but that glory of the Father, in which the Son of man will come to judge the world, will be so great that it can be received by angels alone. And if some of the saints too prove capable of that glory, they will doubtless be those of whom it is said that "they will be like the angels of God." And in this way it seems to have been rightly said of the future glory, which is to be hoped for, that the Son of man comes "in the glory of the Father," which not earthly men but holy angels deserve to receive. For God dispenses the greatness of glories too according to the capacity of minds.

But just as no one could either believe or receive that glory which the apostles say in the Gospels they saw, "glory as of the Only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth," unless that glory too which was ministered through Moses in the law had held the way of understanding (as he testifies who said to Nathanael, "We have found him of whom Moses and the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth"; in which he certainly shows that, enlightened by the Law and the Prophets, they beheld the light of this glory, which was as of the Only-begotten from the Father): so too what the Apostle said, "But we, beholding the glory of the Lord with unveiled face, by the same …" [means that one] who contemplates this glory of the Only-begotten with unveiled face, that is, with the full understanding of faith, by the same image by which he came from the Law to the Gospels and to the fleshly coming of the Savior, directs the gaze of the mind, with the sight of the heart enlightened by faith, to the second coming of glory as well, and is transformed from the present glory to the future glory which is hoped for. Hence I think that no one can either be or deserve to become capable of that future glory unless from here on he receives a certain practice and meditation of it, according to what the Apostle says, by beholding it in a mirror and in a riddle, so that from this image of constant meditation, which, placed in the flesh, he bears of the divine glory, he may be carried over, more prepared, to the capacity of that true glory through the power of the Holy Spirit.

"And not only that, but we also boast in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces patience, and patience proof, and proof hope; and hope does not put to shame, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." The very first word of this passage contains some ambiguity: for it has nothing in what follows to which what he said, "And not only that," should be referred. Hence see whether we can resolve the ambiguity of the expression in this way. Since above he taught that many things have been granted us through our Lord Jesus Christ, as when he says that we have been justified by faith through our Lord Jesus Christ, and through him have access into this grace, and through him also boast in hope of the glory of God, I think "And not only that" should be referred to all these things that were said: that is, "not only the things I said above, but this too, that we boast in our tribulations, we have through our Lord Jesus Christ." For while the rest are sad in tribulation, we, strengthened by the power of his grace, boast in tribulations. For we have learned from his instruction a new discipline: that through tribulations we may take hold of the good of patience; and having the good of patience, we may be judged approved; and approved through the patience of many tribulations, we may have the hope of future reward from God; and this hope, since it is sure and true, does not put to shame those who hope. For the love of God follows faith and hope, which is the greatest of all, and not only fills our mind but also overflows and is poured out in our hearts, because it is not acquired by us by human art but is poured in through the grace of the Holy Spirit. Let these things be explained according to the sequence of the words themselves or of the letter, for the opening up of the apostolic speech.

Now let us ask what the inner sense contains. And first let us see about boasting, what he said: "We boast in our tribulations." For the word "boasting" is sometimes put in the Scriptures in praise, sometimes in blame. For when Jeremiah says, "Thus says the Lord: Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, nor the strong man in his strength, nor let the rich man boast in his riches; but let him who boasts boast in this, to understand and know me, that I am the Lord who establish mercy and judgment and righteousness on the earth," he put boasting both in praise and in blame in one and the same passage. For if anyone, he says, boasts in his wisdom, or in strength, or in riches, he boasts blameworthily; but if anyone boasts in knowing the Lord, and in understanding his judgments and mercy and righteousness, he boasts praiseworthily. Since, then, this word looks to both, we must ask in what things boasting is right and in what it is less right. This we will be able to recognize only if we hold the natures of things with a fitting distinction. What we mean is this. All things that are or are done are either good, or evil, or indifferent. Although a broader discussion should be held about these, we will set out as much as suffices for the present place. It is certain that those things are properly called good which pertain to the virtues of the soul; and that only those are defined as evil which look to wickedness and are against the law; and that those are to be named neither good nor evil which are, like riches, beauty of body, strength or stature, and the things that serve the uses of the body. If anyone, then, is ignorant of the distinction of this difference and boasts in things that are not truly good and do not pertain to the virtue of the soul, he boasts blameworthily. But Paul, who was most skilled in these matters, when he had said, "We boast in our tribulations," lest he should perhaps be thought to boast in things indifferent and intermediate, at once gives the reason and shows that his boasting, which he has in tribulations, pertains to the virtues of the soul. For he says that the tribulation for which he boasts produces patience, and patience proof, and proof hope, and hope does not put to shame, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit; so that in these he teaches that through virtues succeeding one another the boasting of tribulations ascends to the summit of the Holy Spirit, as he says elsewhere too: "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord." It is fitting, then, to boast neither in one's own wisdom, nor in strength, nor in riches, but in God alone.

But perhaps you say: Does not wisdom pertain to the virtues of the soul? And why is it held blameworthy to boast in wisdom? See, then, how careful is the word of Scripture, which seems unpolished and rustic. It did not say, "Let not the wise man boast in wisdom," and fall silent; but it said: "Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom." For one who boasts in his own wisdom and not in God's boasts blameworthily, because the prophet also says elsewhere: "Woe to those who are wise in themselves and learned in their own sight." The wisdom of God, then, is to know God and to understand his mercy and judgment and the righteousness which he has done on the earth; and one who boasts in this boasts in the Lord. But human wisdom cannot know and understand the Lord, nor recognize the judgments and mercy and righteousness which he has done on the earth; and therefore it is indifferent and intermediate. For it can happen that someone instructed in this human wisdom comes better prepared to the understanding of divine wisdom, and, trained in this, becomes more capable of that. In a similar way one who uses the other things we called intermediate, such as strength or riches: while they are intermediate, that is, while someone is not strong in the work of God nor rich in mercies to the poor, he ought not to boast either in strength or in riches. But if these intermediate things are turned to the virtue of the soul and to the fruit of good work, they are made worthy of boasting; just as, on the other hand, if they are applied to evil work, so that someone oppresses the poor by riches and throws down the weak by strength, they are then thought to be not intermediate but evil. They are called indifferent and intermediate by their nature for this reason, that joined to evil work they can be called evil, and joined to good works they can be named good. But those who call them good without this inclination to one of the two must be believed unskilled and ignorant of rational definitions and names. By an improper use, however, we call a craftsman wise, and a pilot, and an architect, and we name a woman wise in weaving.

As for what the Apostle says in the present passage, then, that "tribulation produces patience": if patience is certainly one of the virtues of the soul, tribulation, which without doubt gives birth to virtues of the soul, is to be called neither evil nor indifferent but good. And, as we said above, patience is to be called a virtue of the soul so much that he says that through patience our proof comes about, and through proof hope is given; and since this is placed in God, who is the father of all virtues, it does not put to shame the one who hopes. For together with hope it also holds the abundance of love, which, because love is the greatest of all, is joined in the first place to the Spirit.

But if someone meets us and says that tribulation is intermediate and indifferent, since indeed we find that the wicked and ungodly too are afflicted, and their tribulation is not at once to be counted a virtue of the soul because they are afflicted for their evil acts, see whether we can answer in this way: that tribulation properly belongs to the saints, but the tribulation of the ungodly and unrighteous is called scourges. For thus it says in the Psalm: "Many are the tribulations of the righteous." But of the others it says: "Many are the scourges of the sinner." And perhaps tribulation and distress pertain to the saints for this reason, that they are the ones who walk the narrow and constricted way, and therefore they are said to be afflicted. This too I think the apostles understood in the Lord himself, who is the true way on which the saints walk, when they said to him: "The crowds press upon you and hem you in, Master." The tribulations of the righteous, then, we ought to take not only as those that come from outside from those things we called indifferent or intermediate above, that is, from losses, or illnesses, or any torment of the body, but also in that even when placed in rest they afflict themselves and wear themselves down by resisting their own wills, curbing lust, restraining license, and striking down everything that opposes the good of continence, according to him who said: "I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps, after preaching to others, I myself should be rejected." And in this way the tribulation of the righteous cannot be called indifferent but plainly good, through which the goods of virtue are fulfilled. But the unrighteous, even if they are afflicted (which we said Scripture rather calls scourges), since in these very scourges and chastisements they do nothing according to the virtue of the soul, lead nothing to patience, nor hope for proof through patience: for this reason in them it is to be named not tribulation that arrives at these goods, but scourges, as Scripture wished, even if you sometimes find the name of tribulation used improperly of the unrighteous too.

And so that you may know that the tribulation of the righteous does not constrict the virtue of the soul but rather enlarges it, hear Paul himself writing to the Corinthians how he distinguishes these things; for he says thus: "In everything we suffer tribulation, but we are not constricted; we are cast down, but we do not perish." You see that he says he suffers tribulation not in one thing but in everything, that is, both in the things that happen from outside and are inflicted by others, and in those which he himself bears within himself for the continence of the body and the labors of the best practices; and therefore he says that "in everything we suffer tribulation, but we are not constricted." For one who is enlarged by virtues cannot be constricted. And to make what we say still clearer in this way, Paul himself writes later: "I know how to be humbled, I know how to abound (in everything and for everything I have been instructed), both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer want." If, then, what he said above is true, "In everything we suffer tribulation," it is certain that he indicates this: that both when he suffers want he is afflicted, and when he abounds he is no less afflicted. He is afflicted in want, because something is lacking; and in abundance, because he restrains himself, lest he be dissolved by abundance, or lest he dispense less fittingly the things that seem to abound. So too when he hungers and when he is full, and when he suffers persecutions and when he lives in rest. And in this way one who is afflicted in all these things rightly boasts in his tribulations: from which without doubt is born patience, which, made approved, gives birth to hope, which, joined to love, unites him with the Holy Spirit.

As for his saying, "The love of God has been poured out in our hearts," we must consider more carefully in whose hearts the love of God is poured out. I think it is in the hearts of those who no longer have the spirit of slavery again in fear, but also of those in whom perfect love casts out fear, to whom is given the spirit of adoption, which cries in their hearts, Abba, Father. It belongs, then, to no ordinary man but only to one who is perfect, and such as Paul was, that the love of God is poured out in his heart through the Holy Spirit. But this too seems to me to need consideration: whether he means here that love by which we love God, or that by which we are loved by God, as poured out through the Holy Spirit in our hearts. And if that love by which we love God is understood, this saying needs no proof; but if, since he said the love of God was poured out in our hearts, it should rather be understood as that by which we are loved by God, it is certain that he sets down love as the highest and greatest gift of the Holy Spirit, so that, having first received it as a gift from God, by this very fact that we are loved by God we can love God. For Paul himself names the spirit of love, and God is called love, and Christ is called the Son of love. And if the spirit of love, and the Son of love, and God love are found, it is certain that from the one fountain of the Father's deity both the Son and the Holy Spirit are to be understood; from whose abundance an abundance of love is poured also into the hearts of the saints, to take participation in the divine nature, as the apostle Peter taught: so that through this gift of the Holy Spirit that word may be fulfilled which the Lord … for we were ungodly before we turned to God, and Christ certainly underwent death for us before we believed; which without doubt he would not have done unless he had had an exceeding and most abundant love toward us, whether our Lord Jesus Christ himself in dying for the ungodly, or God the Father in handing over his Only-begotten for the redemption of the ungodly.

For since hardly anyone dies for a righteous man, and everyone hesitates to undergo death even if the cause of death is just, how great is this one, and how great must his love toward us be reckoned, who, according to that time in which he suffered, did not refuse to endure death for the ungodly and unrighteous? In this certainly is the sign of that supreme divine goodness. For unless he came from that substance, and were the Son of that Father of whom it was said that "no one is good except one, God the Father," he could not have shown such goodness toward us. Hence, since from this sign of so great goodness he himself is recognized to be good, for this good man perhaps someone would even dare to die. For when each one has recognized such goodness of Christ toward himself, and has had his love poured out in his heart, he will desire not only to die for this good man but to die boldly. This we often see fulfilled in deeds and works, when those in whose hearts the love of Christ has been abundantly poured out offer themselves to the persecutors even of their own accord and with all boldness, and confess the name of Christ, with the world listening, before angels and men, so that they dare not only to suffer injury for his name but also to undergo death for this good man, which hardly anyone endures for a righteous man. For the love of this life is so great that even when a just cause of death has come, hardly anyone accepts death patiently. And a just cause of death seems to be when it comes by the law of nature; and although it is just by the condition of mortality, yet the soul hardly embraces yielding to the laws of nature. "Hardly, then, does anyone die for a righteous man." For for a good man someone dares to die and boldly falls, especially if he has understood that, while according to the time we were still ungodly and weak, he died for us first. And how will one who recognizes that these things were first granted him by that one not repay to the good man the death which that one spent on the wicked?

The error of those is refuted who thought this place should be interpreted so as to affirm that what he said, "For hardly does anyone die for a righteous man," must be understood of the God of the law, whom they call just but not also good; but they assert that Christ is good, as the Son of a good Father. But what will they do, since we find many martyrs in the law too? Let them read the books of the Maccabees, where with all steadfastness a blessed mother with seven sons undergoes martyrdom, who not only bear martyrdom patiently but even heap insults on the tyrant; and let them see whether what they say is true, that hardly anyone dies for the just one. Let them see the three young men cast into the furnace of burning fire with all confidence for the freedom of their faith, and let them say that hardly anyone dies for the just one. Only death for God, then, is undertaken with all boldness; but every other death is endured hardly and with difficulty, even if it is just and comes down by the law of the human condition.