That is, capital sin so passed upon men that not only did he die who transgressed, but also those who were begotten of transgressors are held liable through the bond of nature; that is, through all its branches the corrupted root transmitted its vice. Adam slew, Christ made alive. 'In whom all have sinned.' Either by the sin of disobedience, or in Adam the punishment of all who sin was foreshown. 'For until the law sin was in the world.' It must be asked what sin: that is, that sin alone was in force until the law which the prevarication of the first parent brought in; for the offense of transgression ceased before the coming of the law.
In the first age sinners enjoyed the liberty of the present life more securely. There was indeed sin before the law, from doing, but it was not so imputed, because the natural knowledge had already been almost blotted out, whose understanding, as though dead, revived through the law. The law came as the avenger of sin. 'But sin was not imputed, when there was no law.' It existed, but to rustic men it was not imputed, nor was it believed by others to be sin. 'But death reigned from Adam until Moses.' That is, death coming from the original evil reigned alone until the law. Therefore he said 'reigned,' because it had seized the whole world generally. Other sins by no means seemed to reign, because iniquity did not reign generally over all men.
For some measure of natural justice flourished in very many, as in many philosophers; and the other faults, though springing from a corrupted nature, were nevertheless voluntary. There followed another new thing—namely, the offense of prevarication when the law was despised. Therefore the obligation of the first man alone reigned by itself, working death until Moses. But from the time of the law another kind of offenses was added, unto the guilt of the neglected law, which before its promulgation could not be imputed. And thus, as new precepts entered in, iniquity was multiplied. For the law came, not that it might take away sin, but that it might display or judge it.
And therefore here the Apostle's teaching commends the abundance of grace, because the Redeemer's goodness pardoned not only Adam's debt, which alone had reigned until the law as with a tyrannical dominion, but also the innumerable offenses of prevarication and of reprobate conduct. For this reason he said, 'For judgment indeed was by one unto condemnation.' But what he says, 'until Moses,' that is, until the end of the law and the beginning of grace, the natural debt reigned; just as we say, for example, 'The Huns lasted until Attila'—by which we designate not the beginning of his reign but its end; so also 'until Moses,' that is, until the end of the law and the beginning of grace.
The remaining offenses, which were not understood to be sins until the beginning of the law—until the law should say, 'You shall not covet'—revived through the law. For original sin reigns even today until baptism, but it has lost the use of its usury since the blood of Christ blotted out the original bond. But someone will say: Why does the evil of origin still reign in many nations? To whom he replies: Then indeed the plague, widely diffused, reigned, when the physician was absent, when the general mortality laid all waste. But where remission, sent from heaven, opened the gate of paradise, death lost its power; and thus it does not reign, because its kingdom has been destroyed through the grace of Christ.
'Even upon those who did not sin after the similitude of the transgression of Adam, who is the figure of Him that was to come.' A figure of Him that was to come—a figure by contrast: as the one was a figure of sin, so this One of justice; or the one in a living soul, this One in a life-giving spirit. Adam was a figure of Christ: because as Adam was made by the hands of God without conjugal intercourse, so also Christ, God working, came forth from a virgin. 'But not as the offense, so also the gift. For if by the offense of one many died, much more the grace of God and the gift, in the grace of the one man Jesus Christ, has abounded unto many.' 'And not as by one sin, so also the gift'—that is, justice prevailed more in giving life than sin in slaying.
For Adam's sin slew both himself and his posterity; but Christ saved both those whom He found in the body, and His own manhood, and His posterity. But perhaps someone says: The flesh, which comes from the transgressor, justly draws original sin; but the soul, which is born innocent—whence does it draw original sin, so that if an unbaptized infant dies, it is damned forever? Let him hear and acknowledge that the soul rather sinned first in Adam, through the appetite of divinity, than the flesh. But in this place the opinion is altogether to be avoided which says: As the flesh comes from the flesh of Adam, so our soul is created from the soul of Adam by the hidden working of God. As a certain one said:
'By a hidden law nature pours forth its own work'—which, unless it be here freed by grace, shall be damned with perpetual punishment forever. 'For the judgment'—understand, of death. 'By one unto condemnation'—understand, the first man sinning, or the first sin. 'But grace, from many offenses, unto justification.' As though the first obligation of the old offense held dominion until Christ. But the other offenses before the prohibition of the law were not seen, or were not understood, to be so grave: therefore grace, coming, forgave through baptism not only the original debt but also the actual. And therefore from many offenses it justified. 'For if by one man's offense death reigned through one'—that is, through Adam's transgression—'much more the abundance of grace.'
Greater is the redemption of the Saviour than the perdition of the transgressor: because through Christ all sins have been remitted, not only original but also actual. 'And those who receive of the gift and of justice shall reign in life through one, Jesus Christ.' Because both that we may live justly and that we may reign with Him, has been granted by the bounty of His gift. Let us hear of the gifts; of our own merits let us be silent. 'Therefore as by the offense of one unto all men to condemnation, so also by the justice of one unto all men to justification of life.' 'Death reigned'—understood. He therefore who is freed from this condemnation, let him love grace; he who is not freed, let him acknowledge the debt. If in remitting the debt goodness is understood, in exacting it equity.
For nowhere is iniquity found with God. 'For as by the disobedience of one man many were made sinners, so also by the obedience of one shall many be made just.' As by the example of Adam's disobedience many sinned, so also by the obedience of Christ many are justified. Great is the crime of disobedience, which whatever Christian shall have, it empties out whatever good he shall have done. 'Obedience,' He says, 'I desire rather than sacrifice.' 'But the law entered in, that the offense might abound.' Lest they should say to us: The law remitted sins. 'It came not,' he says, 'to remit, but to display'; and when it was despised, the offense began to abound through knowledge—as though he should say: As I see, the law did not lessen sins but added to them, yet not by its own fault, but by theirs.
'The law,' he says, 'entered in, that the offense might abound'—which was emptied out by the bounty of the grace that came upon it. Openly, then, from this testimony we perceive that the Apostle speaks of two kinds of sins, which came either from natural or from legal transgression; where, having explained the natural cause, he added the legal, saying: 'Where sin abounded, grace did more abound.' 'But where sin abounded'—the whole sense is this: The old Adam by one offense brought in death; the new Adam, from the indulgence of innumerable offenses, gave salvation. 'Where,' he says, 'sin abounded'—because, the law having been received, sin is perpetrated not with ignorance but with knowledge. Therefore the offense begins to abound. 'Grace did more abound.'
'That as sin reigned unto death.' As the Saviour says: 'To whom more is forgiven, he loves more.' The magnitude of sin was made manifest, that they might know the greatness of grace, and render a greatness of charity, and that from the indulgence of remission the debt of charity might grow. 'So also may grace reign through justice unto life eternal, through Jesus Christ our Lord.' The benefits are made manifest when, on the contrary, they are compared with the merits of the unworthy: for death reigned through Adam, life through Christ. That as the kingdom of sin was confirmed through the law despised, which took away the excuse of ignorance, so also the kingdom of grace may be confirmed through the remission of many sins. CHAPTER VI.—What shall we say then?
'Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?' Here is inserted the objection of those who, still understanding little, could say: If grace grows in the magnitude of offenses, we ought to sin, that grace may abound, that His munificence may be able to abound more and more in sinners. 'God forbid.' God forbid. They speak so unskillfully who are still found to be weak. But let us who have already died to sin, that we might live to grace, reject the persuasion of this ignorance. 'For we who have died to sin, how shall we still live in it?' He wishes the baptized to be so firm and so perfect as one who, with respect to committing capital crimes, is in a manner compared to a dead man: so that he ought no longer to sin—that is, to commit crime.
'Or are you ignorant that all we who have been baptized in Christ Jesus…' Or are you perhaps ignorant of the sacrament of His baptism itself? In the Scriptures there are three kinds of baptisms: of water, as John's; of the Spirit, which is also fire, as in the Acts of the Apostles—the Holy Spirit descended as it were as fire, of whose deity he shows in another place: 'Our God,' he says, 'is a consuming fire.' The third kind is baptism in blood, whereby the martyrs are baptized; whence the Lord Himself, though already baptized, testifies in the Gospel: 'I have a baptism to be baptized with, which you know not.' As we read in the epistle of the Apostle John: 'There are three that bear witness: water, blood, and the Spirit'—one in ministry, not in nature.
Water is by figure a witness of the Lord's burial; blood is a witness of His death; the Spirit is a witness of the resurrection, because the Spirit is the author of life. 'We have been baptized in His death.' We are baptized in the death of Christ, that, believing in His death, we might live as though dead—we to whom there should be nothing common with this world, and for whom the whole world was to die by the example of its Author, as many saints either have done or do; because Christ died for all. Therefore all are dead, that those who live may live no longer to themselves, but to Him who died for them. 'And now not I live, but Christ lives in me.' And, 'To me the world is crucified, and I to the world.'
For it cannot come to pass but that, the head being dead, all the members die together with it. For the head bore the punishments for all the members, that all the members might die in Him, and thus, being dead to sin, might live to God. For as a dead man cannot sin, so also we, who have died together with Christ, ought not to be entangled in capital sins. He who is crucified does nothing else but await the hour of death, and into the hands of the Father commends his spirit. More fully it must be inquired what ought to be understood by 'we have been baptized in His death.'
The Apostle enjoins that, because for our sake Christ was crucified, died and was buried, and rose again, we too, unto the likeness of His passion, should crucify our own wills and desires, and in the mystery of baptism imitate the example of His death, burial, and resurrection; so that if we have been companions of His sufferings, we may be also of His consolations. But it must be asked how one placed in life can die, and, not yet dead, be buried; and, not yet buried, how he can be raised up. In this way, surely: while from sons of perdition we are made sons of adoption, we die beforehand to our former nature by a second birth; and while we are submerged under the kindred element of earth, we are buried; while we rise up from the bosom of the font, we are raised.
And from this the sacrament of baptism is very great. And therefore he said: 'We were buried together with Him through baptism unto death.' And in what follows: 'If,' he says, 'we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live together with Christ.' We must labor, therefore, that nothing of the filth of the old man may be recognized in us; whence, if any of us is perchance forestalled by a fault, let him be washed clean through penitence by the gift of the Lord. If, then, we shall have been new and changed in conduct, likewise new and changed shall we be made in glory. 'Knowing that our old man is crucified together.' He is called the old man who either is not yet seen to have put off the old and earthly Adam, or imitates the same, having relapsed into the mire of his former life.
But as that Redeemer hung up an innocent body, so let us hang up our guilty body away from vices. In which mystery of the cross Moses hung up the brazen serpent upon a pole, 'that the body of sin may be destroyed'—that is, that vice may be destroyed not in part but wholly. 'For we were buried together with Him through baptism unto death.' In the example of Christ, to imitate Him, we are buried together in baptism, that, being dead to our old crimes, we may renounce the devil and his pomps. He shows that we are so baptized as to be buried together with Christ. 'That as Christ rose from the dead by the glory of the Father'—that as the Father is glorified through the resurrection of the Son, so also may He be glorified through the newness of our conduct. 'So we also may walk in newness of life.'
He shows how, living, we can be dead, and ought to will or desire nothing that they will or desire who are not new. 'For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection.' If we have been buried together, we shall be also partakers of the resurrection. If we have not been planted together, neither shall we rise together; and if we shall have been new in life, we shall be new in glory. If we shall have had the likeness of His death, we shall have also that of His resurrection. 'Knowing this, that our old man is crucified together'—those who by imitating the old and earthly man were sinning. For by the old man is understood Adam, as by the new, Christ. 'That the body of sin may be destroyed.' One vice is a member of sin.
But the body is the totality of offenses, whose beginning is original sin. But Christ was crucified not in part, but whole, that we might wholly die to sin and live to God; or that our body might be destroyed from the servitude of sin, and become the bondservant of justice, which was wont to be of offense. 'That we may no longer serve sin.' For everyone who commits sin is the servant of sin. 'For he who has died is justified from sin'—that is, he is estranged from sin, he can no longer sin; for the crucified man, all his members being possessed by pain, cannot sin, but contradicts his concupiscences and passions. 'But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live together with Christ.'
As he says also elsewhere: 'If we have died together, we shall also live together.' 'Knowing that Christ rising from the dead now dies no more.' So also we, if we shall have died to vices, shall not fear the second death. Or certainly thus: as Christ can no longer be crucified again for you if you live criminally, so also you cannot be baptized again; as he says elsewhere: 'It is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have been made partakers, to be renewed again unto penitence, crucifying again to themselves the Son of God'—to whom he forbids not penitence but renovation, that is, the repetition of baptism. 'Death shall no more have dominion over Him.'
If death shall no longer have dominion, then it once did have dominion—against the Manichees, because they deny that Christ had true flesh. 'For in that He died, He died to sin.' Either that He died for the sin of the human race, or that He died to death itself, which could have no further place in Him. 'He died once'—that is, as your head died once, so you also, being made His members, follow the examples of His life, that you may owe nothing further to death; that is, that in you the second death may have no place. For he who believes that baptism can be repeated believes that Christ can be crucified again. 'But in that He lives, He lives to God.' He lives in deity, the very Man being God. 'So also reckon yourselves'—understand yourselves as sons or members of Him.
'Indeed dead to sin.' As His imitator said: 'Now not I live, but Christ lives in me.' 'But alive'—that is, following His life, we do not yet live in ourselves, but already we all live in Christ. For we are dead, and our life is hidden with Christ in God. 'To God in Christ Jesus.' But he lives to God who follows the footsteps of Christ in humility, sanctification, and piety. 'Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that you should obey its concupiscences.' He shows how it reigns. For he reigns whom all obey. How sin reigns in the body he has explained—that is, if we yield obedience to the corrupted nature and consent. He did not say, 'Let it not be,' because it is already there; but,
'Let it not reign'—that is, let not what it commands be done. Anger rises: do not give to anger a tongue for cursing, nor a hand for striking, nor your members to lust; which would not rise unless sin were in our members. Sin is indeed present in the members, but it does not reign if its desires are not obeyed. And therefore, while one does what he does not will—that is, he does not will to covet, yet covets—he 'consents to the law, that it is good'; for he too wills what the law wills, because he himself wills not to covet, and the law has said, 'You shall not covet.' 'But neither yield your members as weapons of iniquity unto sin.' If any member shall have turned its office to evil uses, it is made a weapon of iniquity for storming justice:
if the hand for theft, the tongue for lying or blasphemy; if the eye should serve concupiscence for storming chastity, and the rest. 'But present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead.' As though you had already risen; but after the resurrection one does not live carnally, nor sin. 'And your members as weapons of justice unto God.' That the eye which before looked to sin might now look to the ministry of good work; which before looked to plunder might now look to clothe: thus also consider concerning the remaining members, that they may be changed from iniquity to mercy. 'For sin shall not have dominion over you.' Let not sin conquer you; for you are not little ones, but perfect—as a schoolmaster might say to a boy:
'Do not make a fault of speech, for you no longer hear the grammarian, but the orator.' Or 'shall not have dominion' means, it has no right to have dominion. 'For you are not under the law, but under grace.' That is, under the benevolence of the Redeemer, who gave both the effort of fighting and of conquering, and furnished doctrine; but also besides, gave an example, and virtue through the consolation of the Holy Spirit, through which we are freed from the dominion of sin. 'What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law?' He who is under the law is oppressed by the law, while he does not fulfill the law; he is not under the law, but with the law. 'But under grace? God forbid. Do you not know that to whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants you are whom you have obeyed—whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto justice?'
Lest the untaught and those raw in faith should object: Therefore, the vindication of the law having ceased, we shall sin with impunity. God forbid. The grace which also gave us the means whereby we conquer does not will us to sin at all: if you shall have willed to sin, the sentence of the law, which takes vengeance on sinners, shall have dominion over you. But if you shall have served justice, you are not under the law, but under grace. 'For,' he says, 'you cannot serve two masters.' Here, what he said—'we shall sin'—let us understand of criminal and capital sins, not of the minute ones, without which we cannot be. Understand this too everywhere that we are forbidden to sin; because he was speaking of those very sins which the law also was wont to condemn, according to that: 'If we say that we have no sin,' etc.
But thanks be to God that you were the servants of sin. Thanks be to God, because you were such; but now, through his own delivering and helping, you are so no longer: for you obey, for you resist, with God as your helper. Now you have obeyed. That you may live by the gift and the example of Christ, who granted and taught the taking away not only of sins but even of the occasions of transgressions. 'Be imitators of me,' he says, 'as I also am of Christ' — from the heart, from faith. Into that form of doctrine into which you have been delivered: namely, the New Testament. And having been freed from sin: that is, made free. You have been made the servants of righteousness: through the grace of God. I speak after the manner of men: because you cannot yet hear what is divine. Or thus: what I say is worthy of human nature, since it holds good even among men and can easily be understood. That is:
I ought indeed to demand greater things of you as a return for the divine servitude; but condescending to and tempering myself to your weakness, I proclaim and urge things human and possible: that as you were ready to pursue what was harmful and contrary, so you may be eager to accomplish the things that are useful and friendly to salvation. I speak because of the infirmity of the flesh. The body which is corrupted weighs down the soul, because whatever the soul does carnally is reckoned to the flesh; and when the soul does heavenly things, the whole man is spiritual. A man is carnal if he is overcome by concupiscences; spiritual, when by the gift of God he overcomes the concupiscences.
For just as you presented your members to be in bondage, so now, with the will changed, let us present ourselves to serve righteousness — not like the Manichaeans, who say that the nature of the body has sin so implanted in it by its very constitution that it cannot overcome it; but, being renewed by grace, let us not present our members unto evil. For the body is not of itself evil, but the will, which we are commanded to change; and this will is known to be present through the vice of nature by reason of the transgressor's guilt, not by its constitution. Unto uncleanness and iniquity: that is, unto luxury or idolatry. Unto iniquity: unto the doing of iniquity. So now present your members to serve righteousness: that, as you were perfected in evil through original sin, so you may be perfected in good through the gift of grace;
so that the hand which formerly plundered may now reach out in mercy; and the feet which formerly ran to evil may now run to visit the sick and go into the prison for a good work; and the eyes which formerly looked to covet and to seize may now look to have compassion and to give freely. Behold, thus let our members be changed. Unto sanctification: that you may receive sanctification, or possess it. For when you were the servants of sin, you were free from righteousness. That is, in nothing did you serve righteousness. So also now be free from sin, that you may serve it in nothing. Behold, it is shown that they could not so much as be able to sin except by serving under another kind of bondage. Therefore they are not free from righteousness except by the choice of the will.
But they are not freed from sin except by the grace of the Saviour. He called them free with respect to righteousness, not freed; but with respect to sin he called them not free, lest they should attribute this to themselves, but freed: that is, 'if the Son shall make you free, then shall you be free indeed.' What fruit therefore had you then in those things whereof you are now ashamed? What sort of fruit had you in that deed, at the very recollection of which there is shame? Whoever comes to know himself as good is ashamed to have been evil. And whoever is ashamed of himself as being good, is evil, because he has no fruit in the present, and his end is death. For the end of those things — of the evil things, that is — is death: a perpetual punishment. But now being freed from sin. Note that he said 'freed,' so that we may give the glory not to ourselves but to God.
But being made servants to God, you have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end everlasting life. To abide in the service of God — this very thing is already fruit, namely that you live, being sanctified through baptism. Now the servant of God does not render evil to his enemies in turn, as Joseph, who said to his brothers: 'Fear not, for I am a servant of God.' The servants of God, moreover, have in the present their fruit — the gift of the Holy Spirit — and their end everlasting life, or the sanctification of a good life. Therefore in this present life, in that part in which we are servants to God, we are free from sin; but in that part in which we still serve the law, we are still servants of sin. And therefore he said: 'For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man.' Behold, whence are we free, whence do we delight in the law of God?
For freedom brings delight: for as long as you do what is just out of fear, God does not delight you. For the wages of sin is death. Recompense is called wages. Rightly then is it called wages, because eternal death is rendered to devilish malice as a debt owed. He who serves as a soldier for sin receives death as his pay. But the grace of God is life eternal, in Christ Jesus our Lord: the grace under which you now are. And at the same time it is to be noted that he did not say 'the wages of righteousness,' because we do not have that of ourselves. Therefore, although it is not ours but of grace, yet, kept by the help of God, it gives life eternal when this life's span is finished. CHAPTER VII. — Do you not know, brethren (for I speak to them that know the law)?
Here he begins to show the difficulty of the law, in order to exhort them to live without fear under grace: for now, its active force having ceased, the law does not live for us, but for itself; and it lives in the New Testament, through which it is reformed. Because the law has dominion over a man for as long as it lives. For the woman that has a husband is bound by the law to her husband while he lives. But if her husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. He introduces a comparison: by the 'husband' he means the commandment of the law; by the 'woman' he means the people, or the soul, so as to show that the law, which works wrath, being without effect, as it were dead — now that we are mortified — cannot hinder us from being able to belong to him who rose from the dead: which law would rightly live for us if it found in us something to punish.