Commentary on Romans

Contents

Romans 6:6–13 and 6:18 are missing from the digital text used and are not yet on the site. In a few places the lemma printed in a passage belongs to a neighbouring verse (the digital text misnumbers verses); the passage keeps its staged number.

Reading pages: 0.1–1.16 · 1.17–1.32 · 2.1–2.28 · 3.1–3.31 · 4.1–5.10 · 5.12–5.21 · 6.1–6.23 · 7.1–7.3 · 7.4–7.24 · 8.1–8.25 · 8.26–9.15 · 9.16–9.33 · 10.1–10.21 · 11.1–11.36 · 12.1–12.21 · 13.1–14.22 · 15.1–15.33 · 16.1–16.26

1. 0.1Ambrosiaster’s prologue explains that the Roman Christians had received Christ from Jewish believers who kept the law, and outlines the four ways in which Paul argues that salvation comes through faith in Christ, not the law.
2. 1.1Ambrosiaster explains Paul’s name, his title “servant of Christ Jesus” as a sign of both natures, and his being set apart from Judaism for the gospel, which surpasses the law as better surpasses good.
3. 1.2On Rom 1:2–4 Ambrosiaster explains that the gospel was promised in the prophets and that the eternal Son, born of David’s seed by the Virgin, was shown to be Son of God in power by the resurrection.
4. 1.5Ambrosiaster says that the risen Christ gave the apostles grace and power to confirm their preaching to all nations by signs.
5. 1.6The Romans are called among the nations, who received the law of Christ without the law of Moses.
6. 1.7Ambrosiaster says the letter is addressed to those at Rome who think rightly about Christ, and explains grace as forgiveness and peace as reconciliation with the Creator.
7. 1.8Ambrosiaster says Paul rejoices that the ruling Romans had accepted the faith, though not yet in its right form, and gives thanks to God through Christ.
8. 1.9Ambrosiaster explains that Paul serves God in spirit through the gospel rather than through the ceremonies of the law, and that his prayers for the Romans are meant to awaken their love.
9. 1.10Ambrosiaster says Paul prayed for a journey to Rome according to God’s will, which was granted when he appealed to Caesar.
10. 1.11Ambrosiaster says Paul wished to come in person to give the Romans spiritual understanding in place of the law-keeping they had received, since God decreed to save the human race by faith alone added to the natural law.
11. 1.12Paul’s comfort would be complete when the Romans shared one and the same right faith with him.
12. 1.13Ambrosiaster explains that God prevented Paul from coming to Rome until the Romans were prepared, as he forbade him Bithynia and sent him to Corinth.
13. 1.14Paul is a debtor to all, Romans and non-Romans, learned and unlearned, because he was sent to preach to all the gentiles.
14. 1.15Paul is ready to preach at Rome, the head of the empire, whose peace benefits the members.
15. 1.16Ambrosiaster explains that the gospel is God’s power because it was confirmed by signs, that it saves Jew and gentile alike through faith, and that the name “Jew” dates from Judas Maccabaeus.
16. 1.17Ambrosiaster explains God’s righteousness as his justifying the ungodly freely by faith, and “from faith to faith” as from God’s faithfulness in promising to the faith of the one who believes.
17. 1.18God’s wrath is revealed against those who, seeing the Creator in his works, did not worship him alone as the law of nature taught.
18. 1.19God made the visible world so that its invisible Maker could be known through it.
19. 1.20Ambrosiaster says the gentiles are without excuse because God’s eternal power, which is Christ, and his divinity are known from the creation.
20. 1.21Those who knew the one Creator failed to glorify and thank him, and in their darkened hearts worshipped visible things instead.
21. 1.22Ambrosiaster rejects the excuse that one approaches God through created powers as one approaches a king through his counts: God needs no intermediary, only a devout mind.
22. 1.23Ambrosiaster lists examples of idolatry, Babylonian, Egyptian and Israelite, to show the folly of those who changed God’s glory into images of men and beasts.
23. 1.24God’s “handing over” is a permission: idolaters were left to carry out the shameful desires they had conceived, which defile the body as a sign of the soul’s sin.
24. 1.25Idolaters gave the name of God to stones and wood; the blessing “for ever” belongs to the true God, and Paul gives the same blessing to Christ in Rom 9:5.
25. 1.26Ambrosiaster interprets Rom 1:26 as women having sexual relations with women, rejecting another interpretation.
26. 1.27Ambrosiaster takes Paul’s mention of men as clarifying that the women of v. 26 had relations with women, and calls such acts the recompense for idolatry.
27. 1.28Ambrosiaster explains the vice list of Rom 1:28–30 as growing from malice, and notes that Paul names sexual immorality, which includes adultery, so that the lesser sin, tolerated by Roman law, would not seem unpunished.
28. 1.31Those who knew by the natural law that such deeds deserve death still did them, and those who consent to them share their guilt.
29. 1.32Ambrosiaster traces the vices to idolatry, recalls Sodom as a warning, and explains that those who consent to wrongdoing by silence or flattery share its guilt.
30. 2.1One who condemns others for what he himself does is without excuse.
31. 2.2God, who is more just than we, will certainly judge evildoers according to truth.
32. 2.3Ambrosiaster argues that a judge who does the same evils will not escape God’s judgment, since the good Creator cares for his work and will reward and condemn.
33. 2.4God’s patience is not indifference: judgment is reserved for the life to come, where repentance will bear no fruit.
34. 2.5The impenitent store up wrath for the day when God’s judgment, now denied, will be revealed and each will be repaid according to his works.
35. 2.7To those who persevere in good works God will give glory and honour made incorruptible, which is eternal life.
36. 2.8Unbelievers who deny God’s judgment will meet wrath, indignation and distress; God is called angry not because he suffers passion but because he will punish.
37. 2.9The punishment of unbelievers is of the soul, and the Jew is first in punishment as in honour because of the promise to the fathers.
38. 2.10Those who do good will receive honour as sons of God, glory through their transformation, and peace at the judgment.
39. 2.11God shows no partiality: Jew and gentile alike are justified by faith or condemned by unbelief, each by his own merit.
40. 2.12Gentiles who refuse both Moses and Christ will perish; a gentile who keeps the natural law still needs faith to be perfect; Jews who reject what their law promised will be judged by it.
41. 2.13Ambrosiaster explains that the doers of the law are those who believe in the Christ whom the law foretold.
42. 2.14Ambrosiaster takes the gentiles of Rom 2:14 to be Christians who, without keeping the ceremonial law, believe in the Father and the Son by nature’s guidance.
43. 2.15Believing gentiles show the work of the law, which is faith in Christ, written by conscience in their hearts.
44. 2.16Ambrosiaster explains the accusing and defending thoughts as conscience at the judgment, applying them especially to heretics and schismatics who knew the catholic teaching was true and did not follow it, while one who sincerely erred will have a lighter case.
45. 2.17Ambrosiaster explains the name “Jew” as recalling Abraham, Jacob, and above all Christ, the true Judah whom his brothers praise.
46. 2.18A Jew instructed by the law is the more culpable if he does not believe.
47. 2.19The teacher of the law rightly boasts in it, but if he rejects the Christ it promised he leads others to perdition.
48. 2.21The Jew who rebukes gentiles is guilty of the same fault in rejecting the promised Christ.
49. 2.22Ambrosiaster interprets stealing, adultery and sacrilege spiritually as distorting the law and denying Christ, who appeared to the patriarchs as God and was not recognized.
50. 2.23The Jew transgresses the law by ignoring its witness to Christ’s incarnation and divinity.
51. 2.24As in Isaiah’s day, God’s name was blasphemed among the gentiles because Jews, and the Photinians, taught that Christ is not God.
52. 2.25Ambrosiaster takes “circumcision” for descent from Abraham, which profits only if one keeps the law by believing in the Christ it promised.
53. 2.26The gentile who believes in Christ keeps the law’s righteousness and becomes a son of Abraham.
54. 2.27The believing gentile, led by nature to Christ, condemns the Jew who recognized him through neither nature nor law.
55. 2.28True circumcision is of the heart, the acknowledgment of the Creator and the Trinity by faith, whose praise is from God.
56. 3.1The Jews’ chief advantage was receiving the oracles of God, with the deliverance from Egypt and the promise of Christ; descent from Abraham profits those who believe.
57. 3.3The unbelief of some Jews does not void God’s promise to those who believe.
58. 3.4God is truthful and keeps his promises though people disbelieve; Ambrosiaster rejects the reading of Ps 51:4 that makes human sin serve God’s righteousness, since then God could not justly punish or judge.
59. 3.7If human lies served God’s glory, sinners would not be guilty, since they would sin by God’s impulse, which is absurd.
60. 3.8Ambrosiaster rejects the slander that preaching forgiveness encourages sin: those forgiven must sin no more, and sin after faith is dangerous.
61. 3.9Jews and Greeks alike are under sin, as Paul has shown, and he confirms it from Scripture.
62. 3.10Ambrosiaster comments on the psalm catena of Rom 3:10–12: none is righteous or seeks God, as Asa did not in his illness.
63. 3.15Ambrosiaster comments on Rom 3:13–15: the deceit, cursing and bloodshed of the wicked, who killed the prophets.
64. 3.16The wicked choose the way of affliction leading to Gehenna instead of the peaceful way to God.
65. 3.17Ambrosiaster explains the lack of the fear of God and argues that Paul’s “all” means the wicked part of the people, since there are always two peoples in one nation.
66. 3.19Ambrosiaster says that all, Jews and gentiles, are guilty and need God’s mercy; no one is justified before God by the law, which gives a temporal righteousness, but by faith; and he distinguishes three parts of the law.
67. 3.21God’s righteousness, which forgives those the law condemned, came without the ceremonial law but was foretold by it; it is called righteousness because God keeps his promise.
68. 3.22God’s righteousness is the manifestation of Christ, received by all who believe, Jew or Greek.
69. 3.23All, Jews and Greeks, even priests, have sinned; Christ’s death profited all, teaching the living and rescuing all from the underworld.
70. 3.24Believers are justified freely by faith alone, through Christ’s redemption, by which the devil, seizing Christ, lost all whom he held.
71. 3.25In Christ God determined to be propitious to those who believe, freeing them by his blood.
72. 3.26God showed his righteousness by keeping his long-promised purpose to forgive sins through Christ, for gentiles as well as Jews, justifying the one who believes.
73. 3.27Boasting in the law or in descent from Abraham is excluded, since justification is only by faith.
74. 3.28Ambrosiaster takes the works of the law to be circumcision, new moons and the sabbath, without which a believing gentile is justified.
75. 3.29God is God of the gentiles too, as the mixed multitude in the Exodus and the gentile Cornelius show.
76. 3.30The one God justifies Jews and gentiles alike by faith, so that circumcision neither helps nor uncircumcision harms.
77. 3.31Faith establishes the law by showing that what it foretold has come; the law itself foretold its own end, as Daniel, Jeremiah and the Lord show.
78. 4.1Abraham gained nothing by circumcision, since he was justified before it.
79. 4.2Keeping the law justifies only for the present; Abraham has glory before God because of his faith.
80. 4.3Abraham was justified because he believed God, not because of circumcision or his abstaining from wrong.
81. 4.4Keeping the law is a debt imposed by necessity and earns no glory before God, but faith is free and is rewarded, as Abraham’s was.
82. 4.5The ungodly gentile who believes is justified by faith alone, as Abraham was, according to God’s decree that grace requires faith alone.
83. 4.6Ambrosiaster takes David’s blessedness to refer to the forgiveness given without works in baptism, where the apostle adds justification and adoption as sons.
84. 4.9Abraham was reckoned righteous before circumcision, which he received only as a sign of his faith, so that he is father of believing gentiles; the promised seed is Christ, of whom Isaac was a figure.
85. 4.12Abraham is father of all who believe, circumcised or not; the promise that he would inherit the world came through faith, and its heir is Christ, who receives the nations.
86. 4.14If the inheritance came by the law the promise would be void; the law brings wrath on sinners, but faith brings pardon, so that the promise is sure for all, Jews and gentiles who share Abraham’s faith.
87. 4.17Abraham, father of all believers, trusted the God who gives life to the dead and believed against hope that he and Sarah would have countless descendants.
88. 4.19Abraham believed God against his own knowledge of nature, and so is the model for the nations of a faith that trusts God beyond the world’s reckoning.
89. 4.23Abraham’s faith is a pattern for those who believe in the God who raised Jesus; through Christ’s death and resurrection believers are forgiven, justified and adopted as sons of God.
90. 5.1Faith, not the law, brings peace with God through Christ, but only if one believes rightly about Christ.
91. 5.2Through Christ we have access to grace and, raised up by faith, boast in the hope of glory.
92. 5.3Believers boast in tribulations, which prove their hope and increase their reward.
93. 5.4Patience shows a person proved, and the one proved may rightly hope for reward.
94. 5.5The Holy Spirit, given with mighty works, is the pledge that our hope will not be shamed; Christ’s death for the ungodly, when few would die even for the righteous or the good, shows his love.
95. 5.8God shows his love by Christ’s death for sinners; how much more will he save the justified from wrath on the day of judgment.
96. 5.10If Christ’s death reconciled enemies, his risen life will save the reconciled; through him believers boast in God and honour the Son as the Father.
97. 5.12Ambrosiaster reads Rom 5:12 “in whom” as “in Adam”: all sinned in Adam as in a lump and are born under sin and bodily death, while the second death comes only by one’s own sins; Christ, one with God, undoes what Adam began.
98. 5.13Before Moses sin was known by natural law but not reckoned as liable to God’s judgment, until the law showed that God judges; Ambrosiaster sets out three parts of the natural law.
99. 5.14Reading Rom 5:14 without “not”, Ambrosiaster argues that death reigned only over those who, like Adam, sinned in contempt of God by idolatry, while those who honoured God awaited Christ in a place of rest; he defends this Latin reading against Greek manuscripts he regards as altered.
100. 5.15Adam is a type of Christ only in that one sinned and one amended; grace abounds to more than died through Adam’s offence, including those freed at Christ’s descent to the underworld.
101. 5.16Adam’s one sin brought condemnation, but grace forgives many sins and justifies.
102. 5.17If death reigned through Adam over those who sinned like him, much more will grace reign through Christ, giving life to more.
103. 5.18As those who sinned like Adam were condemned, so those who believe are justified through Christ; neither is universal.
104. 5.19Paul’s “many” shows that not all followed Adam’s sin and not all are made righteous.
105. 5.20The law, given to help nature’s seeds of righteousness, in fact exposed and multiplied sin through human habit and the devil’s work; God answered with the superabundant grace of forgiveness through his Son.
106. 5.21As sin reigned for a time through Adam, grace reigns for ever through Christ in those who, forgiven, follow righteousness.
107. 6.1Grace is not a reason to keep sinning: God showed mercy so that the forgiven would sin no more and grace would reign.
108. 6.2Through the spiritual washing of baptism believers died to sin and live to God, and must not return to their former evils.
109. 6.3In baptism we die with Christ, our sins die, and we are reborn in mind with the hope of resurrection.
110. 6.4Buried with Christ in baptism, the pledge and image of resurrection, believers are spiritually washed and walk in the new life of Christ’s precepts.
111. 6.5Those who die to their vices in baptism and sin no more will share in Christ’s resurrection.
112. 6.14One who has been forgiven and does not sin is not under the law, but whoever sins falls back under the law and the rule of sin.
113. 6.15Freedom from the law is God’s own provision through Christ for those who could not keep it, so that, forgiven, they might fight against sin, not a licence to sin.
114. 6.16We are servants of the one whose will we do, so we must not confess God while serving the devil by our acts.
115. 6.17Gentile believers became servants of righteousness by obeying from the heart, led to faith by nature rather than by the law of Moses.
116. 6.19Paul asks only that we serve righteousness as fully as we once served sin; the fruits of sin, like the shameful Phrygian rites, end in death.
117. 6.22Those freed from sin and serving God bear fruit in holiness and end in eternal life.
118. 6.23Sin earns death, but the grace of God, faith in Christ, gives eternal life without disquiet.
119. 7.1Ambrosiaster explains that Paul appeals in Rom 7:1 to a law the Romans knew, the law of nature, as a step toward the special law by which he will prove his point.
120. 7.2Ambrosiaster says that the law binding a wife to her living husband comes from the Gospel, not from Moses, and applies Paul's example to believers, who are not adulterers when joined to Christ once the law is dead to them.
121. 7.3Ambrosiaster applies Rom 7:3 to believers: those freed from the law are not adulterers in joining the Gospel, but those who keep the law while coming to the Gospel are adulterers against both.
122. 7.4Through Christ’s body, unjustly killed by the devil, believers die to the law and belong to the risen Christ, bearing fruit to God.
123. 7.5Ambrosiaster lists ways of being “in the flesh”, explains that the law reveals rather than causes sin, and contrasts the old law, just but unable to forgive, with the law of faith and of the spirit written on the heart.
124. 7.7The law is not sin but reveals it; through the command “You shall not covet” people learned that desire, thought harmless, is sin.
125. 7.8Ambrosiaster takes “sin” here as the devil, who, seeing the law given to help man, used it to provoke every desire; before the law sin seemed dead because people thought God would not judge it.
126. 7.9Sin “revived” when the law showed again that God reckons sin, which the habit of sinning had made people forget.
127. 7.10The law given for life became death for the sinner whom it made guilty, while it still gives life to the obedient.
128. 7.11The devil used the law’s threat to lead man into forbidden things, so that the law given to help him condemned him.
129. 7.12Paul declares the law holy, just and good.
130. 7.13The good law did not cause death; the devil used it to provoke sin, so that sin under the law grew beyond its former measure, and God answered by sending Christ.
131. 7.14The law is spiritual, but man, descended from Adam and enslaved by his own sins, is carnal and too weak to keep it without God’s help, since since the fall the devil has access to his mind.
132. 7.15The person subject to sin knows the good through the law but does what he hates.
133. 7.16Hating the evil he does, a person agrees that the law is right.
134. 7.17Sin, that is, the devil’s power that came through Adam’s sin, does the evil a person does not will.
135. 7.18The flesh is not evil, but sin dwells in it as the corruption left by Adam’s sin, which the devil uses; so a person wills the good but lacks the strength to do it.
136. 7.19The captive of sin does the evil he does not will.
137. 7.20Though a person sins unwillingly under sin’s power, he is not guiltless, since he enslaved himself to it by assent; Paul says this to extol grace.
138. 7.21The law of Moses sides with the will to do good against the sin dwelling in the flesh.
139. 7.22Sin dwells in the flesh, which is propagated from Adam, not in the soul, which is not; so the inner man can still delight in God’s law.
140. 7.23Ambrosiaster explains that Paul’s four laws reduce to two: the good law of God, agreeing with the mind, and the law of sin in the members.
141. 7.24Born under sin, man is freed from the “body of death”, the whole of his sins, by grace through baptism; the freed mind serves God’s law, while the flesh, still under Adam’s sentence, remains open to the devil’s suggestions until the resurrection.
142. 8.1There is no condemnation for those in Christ; the law of faith frees from sin and death, which the law of Moses, though spiritual, could not do; Christ, born of a virgin in sinless flesh like ours, condemned sin (the devil) by the devil’s own sin in crucifying him.
143. 8.4The law’s justification is fulfilled in the forgiven who live by the spirit; Christ condemned sin in three ways: by not sinning, on the cross, and by forgiving sins.
144. 8.5Those who follow the flesh mind its errors, while those who follow the spirit live by the law of the mind.
145. 8.6The prudence of the flesh, whether sinful cunning or a worldly reason that mocks the virgin birth and resurrection, is death; the prudence of the spirit is life and peace.
146. 8.7Not the flesh itself but its wisdom, astrology and a worldly reason that denies the virgin birth and resurrection, is hostile to God and cannot submit to his law.
147. 8.8Those who follow worldly wisdom cannot please God; the Spirit of God, who is also the Spirit of Christ, dwells only in those who do not follow the flesh in thought or deed.
148. 8.10The body of one whom the Holy Spirit leaves through sin is dead, but the Spirit, given to the baptized for justification, is life and cannot die.
149. 8.11Those in whom the Spirit dwells will be given life in their whole person, as Christ was raised.
150. 8.12Freed from Adam’s inheritance of death and washed in the Spirit, we owe obedience not to the flesh but to Christ, an obedience that profits us, not him.
151. 8.13Living by the flesh, as Adam did, brings death; repressing its deeds by the Spirit brings life.
152. 8.14Those led by God’s Spirit, in whom the devil’s counsels are not seen, are sons of God.
153. 8.15The law brought the fear of the guilty, but the Spirit of adoption frees us to call God “Abba, Father”, a privilege our lives must honour.
154. 8.16The Spirit who remains in those who live well testifies that they rightly call God Father.
155. 8.17Sons of God inherit from a living Father; to be co-heirs with Christ, believers must suffer with him by enduring persecution and crucifying the flesh.
156. 8.18Present sufferings are small beside future glory; if sailors and soldiers risk death for little, believers should suffer for Christ, who rewards greatly and gives strength.
157. 8.19Creation waits for the full number of God’s sons, when it too will be freed from corruption.
158. 8.20Creation was subjected unwillingly to the vanity of producing perishable things, which are good and useful in themselves but vain compared with eternal things.
159. 8.21Creation, subjected for God’s purposes, hopes for rest when all who will believe have believed.
160. 8.22All creation, the heavenly bodies and animals alike, groans in labour for our sake and longs for our salvation, which will bring its own release.
161. 8.23Believers, tossed in the world as on a stormy sea by persecution and strife, groan with creation for the coming of God’s kingdom; creation groans the more, seeing its fruits offered to idols.
162. 8.24We are saved in hope, which is of things not yet seen.
163. 8.25Hope waits patiently for what is unseen, the coming kingdom of God.
164. 8.26The Spirit helps our ignorant prayers, preventing what would harm us, as Paul and James and John learned, and intercedes for us in the language of God.
165. 8.27God knows the Spirit’s intercession, for the Spirit is of the same substance as God and asks what pleases God and profits us.
166. 8.28God turns all things to good for those who love him, overlooking their unskilful prayers; the called are those he foreknew as believers.
167. 8.29God chose those he foreknew would remain devoted to him, predestining them to be like his Son, who is firstborn in every sense, our brother as man and our Lord as God.
168. 8.30Those God foreknew as fit he calls, justifies and glorifies, and they persevere; others may believe or be chosen for a time but do not remain, like Judas.
169. 8.31No one can accuse those whom God the judge has foreknown and approved.
170. 8.32God, who gave his own Son for the ungodly, will surely give believers all things with him.
171. 8.33No one can accuse those whom God, who alone judges, justifies.
172. 8.34Christ, who died and rose for us and sits at God’s right hand, cannot condemn us but intercedes for us, as for Peter; his intercession marks the distinction of persons, not inequality.
173. 8.35No torment can separate a firm Christian from love of Christ; persecution only revives the memory of his benefits.
174. 8.36No suffering, even death, compares with Christ’s love and benefits; servants may well die for the Lord who died for them.
175. 8.38Ambrosiaster takes each power in Rom 8:38–39 as one of the devil’s attempts to draw believers from Christ, death, worldly rank, false angels, false wonders like Simon Magus’s flight, terrors and illusions, none of which can separate them from God’s love in Christ.
176. 9.1Paul, calling Christ and the Spirit to witness, declares his grief for his fellow Israelites who lost the benefit of Christ through unbelief.
177. 9.4Paul grieves because Israel, once adopted as God’s sons, made that grace void.
178. 9.5Ambrosiaster lists Israel’s privileges, lost by rejecting the Saviour, and argues at length that “God over all, blessed for ever” refers to Christ, who is worshipped as God with the Father as one God.
179. 9.6God’s word has not failed: Abraham’s true seed are those who share the faith by which Isaac was born.
180. 9.7Abraham’s true sons, Jew or gentile, are those who share his faith in the promise fulfilled in Christ, of whom Isaac was a type.
181. 9.8Not physical descent but faith makes one a son of God and Abraham’s seed.
182. 9.9The promise of a son to Sarah prefigured Christ, in whom all nations are blessed.
183. 9.10Isaac prefigures Christ, while Jacob and Esau represent believers and unbelievers, a matter of faith, not descent, as the faithful Job, a descendant of Esau, shows.
184. 9.11Ambrosiaster explains God’s choice of Jacob over Esau as resting on foreknowledge of their wills, not favouritism; God judges by present justice, so that some, like Saul, Judas and the seventy-two, are good for a time though foreknown as evil.
185. 9.14God is not unjust in loving Jacob and hating Esau: as he condemned Pharaoh and chose Paul, he acts on his foreknowledge of their wills.
186. 9.15God shows mercy to those he foreknows will turn and remain with him; his call pricks the heart rather than compels.
187. 9.16God’s mercy depends on his judgment, not the asker’s will: David, forgiven, remained humble and patient in trouble, while Saul, refused, turned to idols, which shows that God’s foreknowledge judges justly.
188. 9.17God kept Pharaoh alive, though already dead in God’s sight, so that the plagues on him would make all nations acknowledge the one God, as Rahab did.
189. 9.18Paul voices the objection that God arbitrarily shows mercy and hardens, and answers it from God’s foreknowledge.
190. 9.19God cannot be resisted, but as the good and provident parent of all he wills harm to none and must be just.
191. 9.20The creature has no right to answer back to its Creator.
192. 9.21As a potter makes different vessels from one lump, God has mercy on some sinners and not others, but with justice, not by mere will.
193. 9.22God’s patience, by which he long waited for unbelievers who would not turn, leaves them without excuse.
194. 9.23God’s patience prepares the faithful for glory and the persistently wicked for destruction; to “prepare” is to foreknow.
195. 9.24God called and prepared for glory those, Jews and gentiles, whom he knew would persevere.
196. 9.25Hosea’s prophecy that “not my people” would be called God’s sons is fulfilled in the gentiles, now God’s people in the Church everywhere.
197. 9.27Isaiah’s saved remnant are the Israelites who believe in Christ; those who reject him violate the very law they claim.
198. 9.28The “shortened word” is faith alone, the heart of the law, by which the remnant is saved once the ceremonial law is set aside.
199. 9.29The “seed” left by God is Christ, without whom Israel would have perished like Sodom; the gentiles, who did not seek the law’s righteousness, attained the greater righteousness of faith in Christ.
200. 9.31Faith fulfils the law; Israel, clinging to its ceremonies and rejecting Christ, failed to reach the law’s goal.
201. 9.32Israel failed by seeking justification through ceremonial works given for their hardness of heart; the new covenant of forgiveness through Christ replaces that burden.
202. 9.33Christ is the stone of stumbling in Zion, the stone of Daniel cut without hands, that is, born of a virgin; the Jews stumbled at his body and would not see God at work in it.
203. 10.1Paul shows his love for the Jews and their zeal, while teaching that the time for keeping the law has passed.
204. 10.3Some Jews rejected Christ through ignorance, not malice, preferring their own righteousness from the law to Christ, who is God’s righteousness.
205. 10.4Since no one was justified by keeping the law, faith in Christ was given as the law’s perfection, standing for the whole law and prophets.
206. 10.5Keeping the law of Moses kept people from guilt only for the present.
207. 10.6The righteousness of faith does not doubt that Christ descended to the underworld, freed those who hoped in him, and ascended; such faith, unlike fear of the law, is rewarded by God.
208. 10.8The word of faith is near because what we believe accords with the nature of the soul, in which seeds of knowledge of the Creator are planted.
209. 10.9The rule of faith is to believe that Jesus is Lord, raised and ascended with his body, and to confess it openly, not as the rulers who believed in secret.
210. 10.11Believers in Christ will not be shamed at the judgment, when their faith, thought foolish, is shown to be true and wise.
211. 10.12There is no salvation for Jew or Greek without Christ, Lord of all, who is rich toward those who keep calling on him in prayer after believing.
212. 10.13The Lord on whom believers call is the Son, called Angel and God, who appeared to Moses; but one must believe and hear the preacher in order to call on him.
213. 10.14True preachers must be sent by Christ, as the prophet speaks of the beautiful feet of those who announce peace.
214. 10.15The “feet” are the apostles carrying the gospel of peace through the world, the peace of God’s kingdom, the heavenly Jerusalem.
215. 10.16Not all obey the gospel; as Isaiah foresaw, many resist the light.
216. 10.17Faith comes from hearing, and the gospel, like the voice of creation, has reached the whole world, so the Jews cannot claim not to have heard.
217. 10.19Israel heard, and the spiritual Israel believed; as Moses foretold, the unbelieving are provoked to jealousy by the gentiles’ receiving their God and promise.
218. 10.20Isaiah, speaking as Christ, foretold that God would be found by the gentiles who did not seek him.
219. 10.21God’s outstretched hands toward the unbelieving carnal Israel, which may also be Christ’s hands on the cross, leave them responsible for their own ruin.
220. 11.1God has not rejected the believing Israel he foreknew, of whom Paul himself is an example.
221. 11.2None whom God foreknew would believe has been rejected.
222. 11.3As in Elijah’s time God kept seven thousand faithful, so not a few Jews now believe.
223. 11.5Jewish believers are the remnant who remain faithful to the law by receiving the Christ it promised.
224. 11.6Grace is God’s free gift, not a wage for works: he pardons sinners and seeks out those who do not seek him.
225. 11.7Israel seeking justification by the law failed, since the law curses all; the elect who believed are justified by faith.
226. 11.11Ambrosiaster distinguishes Jews blinded for ever because they rejected known truth from malice, and those blinded only for a time through zeal for ancestral tradition, who will return; Israel’s fall has enriched the gentiles, and their fullness will enrich the world more.
227. 11.13Paul honours his ministry to the gentiles by hoping to win his fellow Jews, whose return would be life from the dead; the holy root and firstfruits show they can still believe, while gentiles are grafted, against nature, into the good olive.
228. 11.18Gentile believers must not boast over unbelieving Jews, since they are supported by Israel’s root.
229. 11.19Gentile believers must not boast that the Jews were cut off for their sake, since they fell by their own unbelief; gentiles stand by faith and should fear and pray for the Jews’ return.
230. 11.21If God did not spare Israel, the gentiles, honoured without merit, should fear.
231. 11.22God’s goodness to the gentiles and severity toward those Jews permanently blinded for their malice warn gentiles to remain in his goodness.
232. 11.23God can graft the Jews back in if they turn, so gentile Christians must not insult them.
233. 11.24If gentiles were grafted into the olive of Abraham’s faith, Jews who believe will much more readily be restored to it.
234. 11.25Israel’s partial blindness, caused by zeal for the law, lasts until the fullness of the gentiles has come in; then, their unbelief being from error, not malice, they will be restored to free choice and saved.
235. 11.27The deliverer from Zion, Jesus, still forgives all who turn to him and patiently waits for unbelievers.
236. 11.28Israel’s unbelief opened the way for the gentiles, but the Jews remain beloved for the fathers’ sake, and if they believe, baptism will forgive them freely without the penance required for grave sins.
237. 11.30As the gentiles, once unbelieving, received mercy, so the Jews, to whom the promise was made, will more readily receive it.
238. 11.32When the law had only increased guilt, God decreed faith alone, through which the sins of all are abolished, so that all, shut up in unbelief, might receive mercy.
239. 11.33Paul praises God’s unsearchable wisdom in leading humanity through natural law, the law of Moses and then mercy, so as to win both gentiles and Jews.
240. 11.34No one knows God’s counsel, such as his plan to save the gentiles and to receive the Jews again.
241. 11.36All things are from the Father, through the Son of the same substance, and in the Holy Spirit who is from the Father; therefore creatures cannot know God’s counsel, and to him is glory.
242. 12.1Believers, washed from sin, should offer their bodies as a living sacrifice by putting to death the body’s vices, keeping chastity together with justice, and should not claim more than the gifts God has measured out to them.
243. 12.4As members of one body in Christ, believers have different functions and must serve and encourage one another.
244. 12.6The members of the Church have different gifts according to grace; prophecy, the first, is given in the measure the cause requires.
245. 12.7Ministers and teachers are strengthened by the Spirit in proportion to their faith.
246. 12.8Exhorters, givers, those who preside and those who show mercy are helped by the Spirit; mercy, which includes forgiving, helping the needy, clothing, feeding, rescuing exposed infants and burying the dead, must be done simply and gladly.
247. 12.9Love without pretence, practised to please God, is helped by the Spirit.
248. 12.10Ambrosiaster comments on Rom 12:9–11, defending his Latin reading “serving the time” against the Greek “serving the Lord” and explaining it as speaking of the faith with discretion, as Paul did in circumcising Timothy.
249. 12.12When the faith cannot be spoken openly, believers rejoice in hope, endure tribulation, and persevere in prayer.
250. 12.13To share in the saints is to imitate their lives and to support them materially when they are in need.
251. 12.14Christians should practise hospitality like Abraham and Lot, and bless their persecutors instead of cursing.
252. 12.15Sharing the joys and griefs of others builds up believers and draws unbelievers toward the faith.
253. 12.16Believers should share their brothers’ burdens and avoid pride, which made the devil fall, agreeing with the humble and not being wise in their own eyes.
254. 12.17Christian righteousness exceeds the law’s justice by not repaying evil; and lawful things must be done so as not to scandalize a brother.
255. 12.18Believers should seek peace with all as far as they can, overcoming hostility with good, though they cannot be at peace with blasphemers who deny Christ’s coming in the flesh.
256. 12.19Believers must not avenge themselves, since anger leads to excess and gives the enemy a foothold, but leave vengeance to God.
257. 12.20Kindness to enemies either brings them to friendship, rekindling them like dead coals, or increases their punishment if they persist.
258. 12.21As Christ overcame evil by not resisting, believers overcome the devil’s provocations by not repaying evil.
259. 13.1Civil authority and law, which teach the justice that prepares for the higher justice, are ordained by God and must be obeyed.
260. 13.2Those who defy the law, even if they escape human justice, resist God’s ordinance and will be judged by him.
261. 13.3Rulers, bearing God’s image, punish evil, so those who do good need not fear them.
262. 13.4Rulers are God’s ministers, punishing evil now so as to teach people to avoid the punishment of the coming judgment.
263. 13.5Obedience is owed not only from fear of present punishment but because conscience will accuse at the future judgment.
264. 13.6Paying taxes shows subjection to the ruler, who acts in God’s place; all should render what they owe, fear to authorities, parents and masters, honour to the great, so that the gospel is praised.
265. 13.8Love fulfils the law of Moses, whose commandments are summed up in loving one’s neighbour; the new law goes further, to love of enemies.
266. 13.10Love fulfils the law; the gospel adds love of enemies, which means desiring their good with God, as Christ prayed for his enemies on the cross.
267. 13.11Now that we know God, we must wake from ignorance and negligence and live well, since salvation is near.
268. 13.12The night, the old self, has passed through baptism; believers must cast off carnal works and put on good deeds as the arms of light.
269. 13.13Believers must avoid dissolute banquets, drunkenness, sexual impurity, strife and jealousy, and put on Christ, keeping the new garment of the wedding feast.
270. 14.1Paul settles the Roman dispute over eating meat forbidden by the law: neither eating nor abstaining matters before God, and the weak are to be left to their judgment so that love is kept.
271. 14.2One who knows that all God made is good may eat anything, as the patriarchs did; the weak who eat only vegetables should not be pressed to eat meat against conscience.
272. 14.3Eating or abstaining is a matter of free will, so neither party should despise or judge the other.
273. 14.4God, not a fellow servant, judges the conscience of one who eats or abstains.
274. 14.5Some abstain from meat on certain days, others always; each should follow his own conscience.
275. 14.6Both the one who eats and the one who abstains act for the Lord and give thanks, the abstainer not condemning God’s good creature.
276. 14.7Living under God’s law, no one lives or dies for himself, but for God, his judge.
277. 14.8In life and death we belong to the Lord, our Redeemer, who deals with each by his merit.
278. 14.9Christ, through whom creation was made, died and rose to free the living and the dead from sin’s captivity, and so is Lord of both.
279. 14.10No one should judge his brother over food, since all will stand before Christ’s judgment.
280. 14.11Christ, risen and coming as judge, is the one to whom every knee will bow, acknowledged as God from God.
281. 14.12Each will give account of himself to God, so we should not condemn one another.
282. 14.13Instead of judging one another, believers should decide never to cause a brother to stumble.
283. 14.14Through Christ all foods are clean, but to one who doubts and thinks a food unclean, it is unclean, and he should be left to his conscience.
284. 14.15Since food does not commend us to God, love must come first: one must not, over trifles, trouble the conscience of a brother for whom Christ died.
285. 14.16Believers must not let a trifling issue bring the gospel, or their own good conduct, into disrepute.
286. 14.17God’s kingdom is righteousness, peace and joy in the Spirit, not food; serving Christ pleases God, and believers should pursue peace and mutual edification without contentious debate.
287. 14.20Man, God’s work by creation and rebirth, must not be ruined for the sake of food; all food is clean, but becomes evil for one who eats against his conscience.
288. 14.21Abstaining from meat and wine is good, as eating them is lawful; no necessity is laid on either, and nothing should be done that makes a brother stumble.
289. 14.22One who eats against his own conviction is condemned, since whatever is not from faith is sin; the strong should keep their faith to themselves and keep peace, leaving the weak to their conscience.
290. 15.1The strong, especially teachers, must bear with the weak gently and seek their neighbours’ good, not their own pleasure.
291. 15.3Christ did his Father’s will, not his own, and bore the reproaches aimed at God when he was killed as a blasphemer.
292. 15.4Scripture was written to give hope; Paul prays that the Romans may be of one mind according to Christ and glorify God together, keeping love.
293. 15.7Believers should receive one another as Christ received them; Christ served the circumcised to fulfil God’s promises to the fathers, preaching circumcision of the heart.
294. 15.9The gentiles, saved by mercy alone, praise God, as the psalms and Deuteronomy foretold, joining Israel in one people, as the Jerusalem church accepted in the case of Cornelius.
295. 15.12Isaiah foretold that the gentiles would hope in the root of Jesse; Christ comes from Jesse through David because he is king, the branch being the Virgin Mary.
296. 15.13Paul praises the Romans to encourage them and explains that he wrote boldly by the authority of his ministry to the gentiles, so that their offering may be sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
297. 15.17Paul glories in what Christ worked through him among the gentiles by signs and wonders, showing he was no less than the other apostles.
298. 15.20Paul preached where Christ was not yet named, to forestall false apostles and lay a sound foundation before heresies could corrupt the faith.
299. 15.21As Isaiah foretold, Paul brought the gospel to those who had not heard, so that their understanding of the Son of God might be sound.
300. 15.22Paul explains that he delayed coming to Rome in order to reach unevangelized regions before the false apostles, and plans to visit on his way to Spain.
301. 15.25Paul’s collection for the poor saints of Jerusalem shows that gentiles owe material help to the Jewish believers who shared spiritual gifts, and that those who hope for mercy must show it.
302. 15.28Paul will come to Rome on the way to Spain, bringing the blessing of Christ, that is, the power of signs.
303. 15.30Paul asks the Romans to pray for his deliverance in Judaea, since the united prayers of many prevail.
304. 15.32Paul asks prayer that his gift be accepted in Jerusalem and that he may come joyfully to Rome.
305. 15.33Ambrosiaster identifies the God of peace with Christ, who gives his peace and is with his people always.
306. 16.1Paul commends Phoebe, minister of the church at Cenchreae, and greets Aquila and Priscilla, who risked their lives for him and taught Apollos, along with their household church, Epaenetus and Mary.
307. 16.7Andronicus and Julia, Paul’s kin and fellow prisoners, distinguished among the apostles and believers before him, deserve special honour.
308. 16.8Paul greets Ampliatus as a friend in the Lord.
309. 16.9Paul greets Urbanus, a fellow worker, and his beloved Stachys.
310. 16.10Paul greets Apelles, proved in trials, the converts of Aristobulus, his kinsman Herodion, and the faithful in the household of the presbyter Narcissus.
311. 16.12Paul greets Tryphaena, Tryphosa and Persis, women who laboured for the Lord in exhortation, service and suffering.
312. 16.13Paul greets Rufus, chosen for ministry, and his mother, whom he regards as his own.
313. 16.14Paul greets a group united in Christian friendship and the brothers with them.
314. 16.15Paul greets another like-minded group and the saints with them.
315. 16.16The holy kiss is to be spiritual, not carnal; “churches of Christ” implies that there are churches not of Christ, and Christ, not the law, is the author of life.
316. 16.17Paul warns against the false apostles who, with flattering words and genealogies, pressed believers to live as Jews; he rejoices in the Romans’ obedience and wants them wise in good and innocent of evil.
317. 16.20Paul promises that God will soon crush Satan through his coming to Rome, and sends greetings from Timothy, a kind of fellow bishop, and from his kinsmen.
318. 16.22Tertius, the scribe, adds his greeting.
319. 16.23Paul’s host Gaius, perhaps the Gaius of 3 John, sends greetings; the repeated greeting of “all the churches” may distinguish two peoples in the Church, two provinces, or Jews and gentiles.
320. 16.24Erastus, the city steward, and Quartus send greetings, showing the Romans how many notable believers rejoiced in their faith.
321. 16.25In the closing doxology Ambrosiaster explains the mystery hidden for ages and now revealed as the Trinity, God not being solitary but with the Son and the Spirit from eternity, and gives glory to the Father through the Son in the Spirit.
322. 16.26Paul ends with the grace of Christ, who made and remade us and is with us always.