Romans 6

The believer who returns to his former way of life rejects the kingdom of God's grace and returns to sin, i.e., to the pattern of his previous life. For we have received mercy for two reasons: first, that the kingdom of the devil might be removed, and second, that the rule of God might be proclaimed to the ignorant, for it was by this means that we came to desire this dignity.

Offences must come, but woe to those by whom they come; sins do cause grace to abound, but we must not make that an excuse for continuing to sin.

The other set were accused of saying, 'Faith is all that matters. Consequently, if you have faith, it doesn't matter what you do. Sin away, my lad, and have a good time and Christ will see that it makes no difference in the end.' The answer to that nonsense is that, if what you call your 'faith' in Christ does not involve taking the slightest notice of what He says, then it is not Faith at all—not faith or trust in Him, but only intellectual acceptance of some theory about Him.

He is again turning off to exhortation, yet introducing it not directly, lest he should seem to many to be irksome and vexing, but as if it rose out of the doctrines. For if, even so diversifying his address, he was afraid of their being offended at what he said, and therefore said, "I have written the more boldly unto you in some sort," much more would he have seemed to them, had he not done so, to be too harsh. Since then he showed the greatness of the grace by the greatness of the sins it healed, and owing to this it seemed in the eyes of the unthinking to be an encouragement to sin (for if the reason, they would say, why greater grace was shown, was because we had done great sins, let us not give over sinning, that grace may be more displayed still), now that they might not say this or suspect it, see how he turns the objection back again. First he does it by his deprecation. "God forbid." And this he is in the habit of doing at things confessed on all hands to be absurd. And then he lays down an irrefragable argument.

"What then shall we say? Shall we remain in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. For we who are dead to sin, how shall we still live in it?" Since he had said above that "where sin abounded, grace did more abound," he now sets before himself the question arising from this: that if the abundance of sin gives birth to the superabundance of grace, then one ought to sin, so that grace may abound the more. But he shows the swift resolution of the question when he says, "God forbid"; and immediately he adds the reason, saying that those in whom grace has abounded are dead to sin. Now it is certain that one who is dead to sin cannot be a sinner. Therefore he who is dead to sin will not be able to remain in sin.

Paul is speaking here of those whom faith found in sin, not of us believers, who have died to sin in order to live for grace.

For in that He died to sin, He died once for all; but in that He liveth, to God He liveth. Thus, too, repute ye yourselves dead indeed to sin, but living to God through Christ Jesus." Therefore, Christ being once for all dead, none who, subsequently to Christ, has died, can live again to sin, and especially to so heinous a sin.

The Apostle said that where sin abounded, grace appeared superabundantly. As a result, someone might reason: let us then not cease sinning, so that grace may appear more abundantly. The Apostle refutes such reasoning by expressing himself negatively: "God forbid," as he usually expresses himself about something that is, by common admission, utterly absurd.

After showing that it is through Christ's grace that we are freed from the sin of our first parent and from that which abounded by reason of the law, the Apostle now shows that Christ's grace gives us the power to resist further sin. In regard to this he does two things: first, he raises a question suggested by the foregoing; second, he answers it, at God forbid! For we that are dead.

Above he had said that where sin abounded, grace did more abound (Rom 5:20). This could be misinterpreted by supposing that an increase of sin causes grace to abound all the more. That is why he asks: what shall we say, then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? One would have to say, yes, if increase of sin were the cause and not merely the occasion of grace abounding. Hence he had stated above: as we are slandered and as some affirm that we say, let us do evil that there may come good (Rom 3:8). Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all who are treacherous thrive? (Jer 12:1).

To sin is to live to sin, and not to sin is to live to God. Therefore, when the grace of God through Christ and through faith came upon us, we began by the spiritual rebirth of baptism to live to God, and we died to sin, which is the devil. This is what dying to sin means: to be set free from sin and to become a servant of God. Therefore, having died to sin, let us not go back to our earlier evils, lest by living once again to sin and dying to God we should incur the penalty from which we have escaped.

Here Paul makes the point that past sins have been forgiven and that in this pardon grace so superabounded that earlier sins were remitted as well. Thus whoever tries to increase sin in order to feel an increase of grace does not understand that he is behaving in such a way that grace can do nothing in him. For the work of grace is that we should die to sin.

Nothing shorter or better could be said. For what more useful gift does the grace of God confer on us than to make us die to sin?

Likewise also Paul in the Epistle to the Romans writes: "We who are dead to sin, how shall we any longer live in it? Because our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed," down to the words, "do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin."

Carnal people and unbelievers may live like this, but we are totally incapable of it because we have a new life, having died to sin once for all.

What does "we are dead" mean? Does it mean that as for that, and as far as it goes, we have all received the sentence of death? or, that we became dead to it by believing and being enlightened. This is what one should rather say, since the sequel makes this clearly right. But what is becoming dead to it? The not obeying it in anything any more. For this baptism effected once for all, it made us dead to it. But this must of our own earnestness thenceforth continually be maintained, so that, although sin issue countless commands to us, we may never again obey it, but abide unmovable as a dead man doth. And indeed he elsewhere saith that sin itself is dead. But there he sets that down as wishing to show that virtue is easy, But here, as he earnestly desires to rouse the hearer, he puts the death on his side. Next, since what was said was obscure, he again explains, using what he had said also in the way of reproof.

But that these things may become clearer, let us inquire what it is to live to sin, and what it is to die to sin. Just as he is said to live to God who lives according to the will of God, so also he is said to live to sin who lives according to the will of sin — as the Apostle himself indicates when he says: "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires." In this he shows that to obey the desires of sin is to live to sin. But if to do the desires of sin is to live to sin, then not to do the desires of sin, and not to obey its will, this is to die to sin — which sin, nevertheless, the Apostle says has its seat, as it were, and the throne of its kingdom established in our body. For that part of our substance is more familiar to it, and there is a certain friendly fellowship with the pleasures of the flesh, from which, taking occasions of natural incitement, by a small turning aside it bends the order of nature into the precipice of death. But that what we are saying may be explained still more plainly, let us set down an example. The flesh has natural appetites for food and drink, which are contained within certain measures of sufficiency; and if anyone exceeds these at the persuasion of sin, then the flesh demands not the food and drink that suffices nature, but luxury and drunkenness. In like manner too there is in the flesh a natural incitement by which it seeks union with a woman for the sake of restoring the succession of the race; but if from this occasion, at the persuasion of sin, one turns aside from the law, and the natural motions of desire are stirred up to unlawful things, then he lives to sin who in each of these obeys not the law of God, but the persuasions of sin. If therefore anyone, admonished by the death of Christ, who "died for the ungodly," repents in all these things, and drives out sin like a most wicked king reigning in his own flesh, and makes himself a stranger to its desires and its commands, this man is truly said to be dead to sin through the death of Christ. And here I think that "sin" names the very author of sin. If therefore anyone dies to sin, it is certain that he dies through repentance. How then shall anyone remain in sin that grace may abound, when grace abounds from the very fact that one dies to sin? For if we remain, as is proposed, in sin, it is certain that we do not die, but live to sin; and to those living to sin, grace cannot abound. It is indeed worth inquiring whether grace superabounds only in those men in whom sin at some time abounded; and whether grace superabounds in no one except in him in whom sin abounded; or whether grace can also superabound or abound in some in whom there never will be, or has been, sin. And if anyone considers what the Apostle says, that "Christ made peace through his blood not only for the things that are on earth, but also for those that are in heaven"; and that other saying, "That apart from God he might taste death for all," he will suppose that there too there was likewise some abundance of sin, so that nonetheless there might also come to be a superabundance of grace. But if you attend to what the earlier reading recalled, where sin is said to have entered into this world through one man, and death through sin, and so to have passed upon all, you will say that from that beginning these matters also proceed which we now have in hand, so that he seems to be treating only of those things which the Apostle set forth at the beginning — that is, of those things which pertain to men alone. It should certainly be observed with what weighed speech the Apostle spoke, so as to say, "Shall we remain in sin?" For to remain is not to cease from what has been begun. And if anyone does this, it is certain that he has not even received the beginning of conversion. But this sometimes happens, that a man does not indeed remain in sin, but when he has ceased, he returns again to his vomit, and becomes most wretched, so that after the kingdom of sin and of death has been driven from him, and the kingdom of life and righteousness has been received, he again submits himself to the dominion of sin and of death. And these are what the Apostle calls shipwrecks of the faith. Nevertheless, although a man may remain in sin, although he may continue under the kingdom and power of death, yet I do not think that this kingdom of death is eternal in the way that the kingdom of life and righteousness is — especially since I hear from the Apostle that death, the last enemy, is to be destroyed. And in truth, if the same eternity be assigned to death as belongs to life, then death will no longer be contrary to life, but equal to it. For the eternal will not be contrary to the eternal, but the same. Now, however, it is certain that death is contrary to life; it is certain therefore that if life is eternal, death cannot be eternal — whence also the resurrection of the dead holds a necessary place. For when the death of the soul, which is the last enemy, shall have been destroyed, then also this common death, which we have said is as it were the shadow of that one, will necessarily be abolished; and then consequently place will be given to the resurrection of the dead, when the kingdom of death will be destroyed together with death itself. But let us not wait for the time when this last enemy is destroyed — we who have been "once enlightened," and have tasted "the heavenly gift, and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come"; but let us remain in grace, and not wait to be renewed again after a fall "unto repentance, crucifying again to ourselves the Son of God, and holding him up to open shame"; but let the kingdom of righteousness in us become an eternal kingdom; and let us not flee back again into the kingdom of death, from which, once delivered, we have come to the kingdom of eternal life — so that "grace may reign through righteousness" in us "unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." What therefore he said, "We are dead to sin," is that which he says elsewhere, that we have been made conformed to the death of Christ, who "died once to sin." But when he says "once," he signifies "wholly." For Christ died wholly to sin, he "who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth." "Or are you ignorant that all we who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death? For we were buried together with him through baptism into death; that as Christ rose from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life." Observe more carefully the order of the words and their sequence.

Paul wants the baptized person to be steadfast and virtually perfect.

Then he provides proof: since we died to sin, became dead to it through baptism, so that we should no longer obey it, how then can we still live in it, have an inclination toward it, and obey it? From this we learn that through baptism every believer truly dies to sin, but through his own negligence he "resurrects" himself and immediately comes alive to it, as soon as he unites with it. On the contrary, the diligent person always preserves this deadness in himself and, whatever sin may command him, does not obey it, like a dead man.

Then when he says God forbid, he answers the question. First, he states why we should not continue in sin; second, he ends with an exhortation, at let not sin therefore reign (Rom 6:12). In regard to the first he does two things. First, he shows why we should not continue in sin; second, he shows that we have the power not to continue in sin, at knowing this (Rom 6:6). In regard to the first he presents the following argument: if we are dead to sin, we ought not live in sin. But we are dead to sin. Therefore, we ought not live in sin. Therefore, in regard to this he does four things. First, he states the conditional proposition; second, he proves the antecedent, at know you not; third, he concludes the consequent, at that as Christ is risen; fourth, he proves that the consequent necessarily follows, at for if we have been planted.

First, therefore, he says, God forbid that we to continue in sin that grace may abound, because God has not given anyone permission to sin (Sir 15:20). And the reasoning is this: for we that are dead to sin, inasmuch as sin has been put to death in us, how shall we live any longer therein? For it is not the natural order of things to return from death to life: they are dead, they will not live (Isa 25:14); I had bathed my feet, how could I soil them? (Song 5:3).

Paul says this so that we might know that once we have been baptized we should no longer sin, since when we are baptized we die with Christ. This is what it means to be baptized into his death. For there all our sins die, so that, renewed by the death we have cast off, we might be seen to rise as those who have been born again to new life, so that just as Christ died to sin and rose again, so through baptism we might also have the hope of resurrection. Therefore, baptism is the death of sin so that a new birth might follow, which, although the body remains, nevertheless renews us in our mind and buries all our old evil deeds.

For you are translated from your former vain and tedious mode of life and have contemned the lifeless idols, and despised the demons, which are in darkness, and have run to the "true light," [John 1:9] and by it have "known the one and only true God and Father," [John 17:3] and so are owned to be heirs of His kingdom. For since you have "been baptized into the Lord's death," [Romans 6:3] and into His resurrection, as "new-born babes," [1 Peter 2:2] you ought to be wholly free from all sinful actions; "for you are not your own, but His that bought you" [1 Corinthians 6:19-20] with His own blood.

To be baptized into the death of Christ is nothing else but to die to sin, just as he died in the flesh.

Christ died to sin once, but in that he lives, he lives to God. We have undergone a death like his and have practically been buried together with him. For in that we carry his mortification about in our bodies, we have been buried together with him.

Concurring with these statements, Paul, speaking to the Romans, declares: "Much more they who receive abundance of grace and righteousness for [eternal] life, shall reign by one, Christ Jesus." It follows from this, that he knew nothing of that Christ who flew away from Jesus; nor did he of the Saviour above, whom they hold to be impassible. For if, in truth, the one suffered, and the other remained incapable of suffering, and the one was born, but the other descended upon him who was born, and left him again, it is not one, but two, that are shown forth. But that the apostle did know Him as one, both who was born and who suffered, namely Christ Jesus, he again says in the same Epistle: "Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized in Christ Jesus were baptized in His death? that like as Christ rose from the dead, so should we also walk in newness of life."

What does being "baptized into His Death" mean? That it is with a view to our dying as He did. For Baptism is the Cross. What the Cross then, and Burial, is to Christ, that Baptism hath been to us, even if not in the same respects. For He died Himself and was buried in the Flesh, but we have done both to sin. Wherefore he does not say, planted together in His Death, but in the likeness of His Death. For both the one and the other is a death, but not of the same subject; since the one is of the Flesh, that of Christ; the other of sin, which is our own. As then that is real, so is this. But if it be real, then what is of our part again must be contributed.

Here he hints, along with the duty of a careful walk, at the subject of the resurrection. In what way? Do you believe, he means, that Christ died, and that He was raised again? Believe then the same of thyself. For this is like to the other, since both Cross and Burial is thine. For if thou hast shared in Death and Burial, much more wilt thou in Resurrection and Life. For now the greater is done away with, the sin I mean, it is not right to doubt any longer about the lesser, the doing away of death.

But this he leaves for the present to the conscience of his hearers to reason out, but himself, after the resurrection to come had been set before us, demands of us another, even the new conversation, which is brought about in the present life by a change of habits. When then the fornicator becomes chaste, the covetous man merciful, the harsh subdued, even here a resurrection has taken place, the prelude to the other. And how is it a resurrection? Why, because sin is mortified, and righteousness hath risen again, and the old life hath been made to vanish, and this new and angelic one is being lived in.

For he compares the death which is through Adam with the life which is through Christ; and he says: "Not as the offense, so also is the gift;" and again after these things he says that the law entered in that sin might abound; but where sin abounded, grace superabounded; and in these words he resolves what seemed to be contrary, and says: "For we who are dead to sin, how shall we yet live in it?" Now therefore, wishing to show by the very facts what it is to be dead to sin, he says: "Or are you ignorant that whoever of us have been baptized in Christ Jesus, have been baptized in his death? For we have been buried together with him through baptism into death:" teaching by these words that if anyone has first died to sin, he is of necessity buried together with Christ in baptism; but if anyone does not first die to sin, he cannot be buried with Christ. For no one alive is ever buried. And if he is not buried together with Christ, neither is he lawfully baptized. But concerning the account of baptism, when we were expounding the Gospel according to John, where we came to that passage in which John says of Jesus: "He shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit;" and likewise where the Savior himself says: "Unless a man be born again of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God," we spoke according to our own powers, so far as we were able to attain — nay rather, so far as the Lord granted — where also we attempted to open up more deeply the force of that very word by which it is said: "Unless a man be born again." For what we Latins render "again" (denuo), the Greeks call ἄνωθεν (anōthen), which word signifies both "again" and "from above." In this passage, therefore, since he who is baptized by Jesus is baptized in the Holy Spirit, it is not said "again" in such a way as that, but rather it is fitting that it be understood "from above": for we say "again" when the same things that have been done are repeated; but here the same nativity is not repeated or reiterated, but rather, this earthly one being set aside, a new nativity is received from above; and therefore we should more rightly read in the Gospel: "If anyone has not been born from above, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God:" for this is to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. And to this reasoning, that baptism may be confirmed to be from above, there will not undeservedly be joined to the Holy Spirit also "the waters that are above the heavens, and they praise the name of the Lord." And although according to the type handed down to the Churches we have all been baptized in these visible waters and in visible chrism, nevertheless he who is dead to sin, and is truly baptized into the death of Christ, and is buried together with him through baptism into death, he is truly baptized in the Holy Spirit and in the water from above. And consider yet more diligently the consequence of the mystical order. You must first die to sin, that you may be able to be buried with Christ. For burial is owed to one who is dead. For if you still live to sin, you cannot be buried together with Christ, nor be laid in his new sepulcher, because your old man lives, and cannot walk in newness of life. For on this account it was the Holy Spirit's care to hand down through the Scriptures both that the sepulcher was new in which Jesus was buried, and that he was wrapped in a clean linen cloth: so that everyone who wishes to be buried together with Christ through baptism may know that nothing of oldness is to be brought to the new sepulcher, nothing of uncleanness to the clean linen. This, then, is that blessed death of which the Apostle speaks, that "we always carry about the death of Jesus Christ in our body;" and again: "I die daily." But also that saying of his, "All things are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or this world, or life, or death" — he reckons among these that death by which we die to sin and are buried together with Christ. But someone may inquire in these passages why the Apostle, speaking of our baptism and of Jesus, said: "We have been buried together with him through baptism into death;" and likewise elsewhere: "If we die together with him, we shall also live together with him;" and likewise: "If we suffer together, we shall also reign together;" and nowhere did he say: We have been baptized together with Christ; since surely, just as death is compared with death, and life with life, so also baptism would seem to have had to be compared with baptism. But see how great caution there is in the Apostle's writings; for he says: "Whoever of us have been baptized in Christ Jesus." Our baptism, therefore, he says is in Christ Jesus. But Christ himself is reported to have been baptized by John, not with that baptism which is in Christ, but with that which is in the law. For so he himself says to John: "Suffer it now: for so it becomes us to fulfill all justice." In which he shows that the baptism of John was the completion of the old things, not the beginning of the new. Finally it is related in the Acts of the Apostles that certain of the disciples who had been baptized with the baptism of John were, by the judgment of the apostles, rebaptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. "Whoever," therefore, "of us have been baptized in Christ Jesus, have been baptized in his death." You may perhaps inquire this also: that since the Lord himself said to the disciples that they should baptize all nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, why here the Apostle took up in baptism the name of Christ alone, saying: "Whoever of us have been baptized in Christ," since surely no baptism is held to be lawful except under the name of the Trinity. But consider the prudence of Paul, since indeed in the present passage he desired to discuss not so much the account of baptism as the death of Christ, to the likeness of which he would persuade us also that we ought to die to sin and be buried together with Christ. And it was surely not fitting that, where he was speaking of death, he should name either the Father or the Holy Spirit. For "the Word was made flesh," and rightly, where there is flesh, there death is treated of. Nor was it fitting that he should say: "Whoever of us have been baptized" in the name of the Father, or in the name of the Holy Spirit, "have been baptized in his death." Whence from this passage the Apostle's practice is to be observed in other places also, namely that he does not always, when he takes up something from the Scriptures, take up the whole text of the words as it stands in its own place; but only those things which the argument of the present case requires, as also in the present discourse, since he desired to teach concerning the death of Christ, it sufficed him to say: "Whoever of us have been baptized in Christ, have been baptized in his death." But to me the Apostle seems not even idly to have prefaced in this chapter what he says: "Or do you not know?" By which he shows that at that time, that is, in the times of the apostles, not — as we see done now — was only the type of the mysteries handed down to those who were baptized, but their power and rational account as well, and this as to those who knew and had been taught that they who are baptized are baptized into the death of Christ, and are buried together with him through baptism into death; and that, just as Christ rose from the dead through the glory of the Father, so those who have been baptized ought to walk in newness of life.

Do you not know about this sacrament of baptism? In the Scriptures baptism is received in three ways: with water, with the Holy Spirit (who is also called "fire") and with blood in martyrdom. We who are believers have died with Christ in our baptism.

Since we are baptized we confess that we have died to the world and have been buried to sin and the devil. .

Now it would not at all have been consistent that any rule of holiness and righteousness should be especially enjoined for the flesh, if the reward of such a discipline were not also within its reach; nor could even baptism be properly ordered for the flesh, if by its regeneration a course were not inaugurated tending to its restitution; the apostle himself suggesting this idea: "Know ye not, that so many of us as are baptized into Jesus Christ, are baptized into His death? We are therefore buried with Him by baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised up from the dead, even so we also should walk in newness of life." And that you may not suppose that this is said merely of that life which we have to walk in the newness of, through baptism, by faith, the apostle with superlative forethought adds: "For if we have been planted together in the likeness of Christ's death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection.

But some think as if God were under a necessity of bestowing even on the unworthy, what He has engaged (to give); and they turn His liberality into slavery. But if it is of necessity that God grants us the symbol of death, then He does so unwilling.

If you were "in him," you have your norm; if you have passed over "into Christ," you will be bound to be (yet) better.

He explains how we died to sin, and says: through baptism. We were baptized into the death of Christ; therefore, we too must die, as He died. For what the cross and the tomb are for Christ, baptism is for us, though in a different respect.

Then when he says, know you not, he proves the antecedent, namely, that the faithful are dead to sin: first, he presents the fact he uses to prove his point; second, he proves it, at for we are buried together.

First, therefore, he says: know you not, as if to say: what I am about to propose to you is so obvious that you cannot fail to see it—if anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized (1 Cor 14:38)—namely, that all we who are baptized in Christ Jesus: which can be interpreted in three ways. First, as indicating that baptism was instituted by Jesus Christ: make disciples of all nations, baptizing them (Matt 28:19); second, as indicating that it is conferred in the name of Christ: in the name of Jesus Christ they were baptized (Acts 8:12); third, in Christ Jesus, i.e., as indicating baptism into some likeness of Christ Jesus: for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ (Gal 3:27). Are baptized in his death, i.e., into a likeness of his death as re-presenting in ourselves the very death of Christ: always carrying in the body the death of Jesus (2 Cor 4:10); I bear on my body the marks of Jesus (Gal 6:17). Or in his death, i.e., by virtue of his death: he freed us from our sins by his blood (Rev 1:5). Hence, from the side of Christ hanging on the cross flowed blood and water after his death (John 19:34). Therefore, just as we are configured to his death, inasmuch as we have died to sin, so he has died to his mortal life, in which there was the likeness of sin, although no sin was there. Therefore, all we who are baptized are dead to sin.

So likewise in baptism, since it is a likeness of death, without a doubt, when you are immersed and rise again, it becomes a likeness of resurrection. Therefore, according to the interpretation of the apostle Peter, just as that resurrection was a regeneration, so is this resurrection a regeneration.

First of all, this means that Christ raised his own body from the dead. For he is the power of God the Father, as he said: "Destroy this temple and I will raise it again in three days." He was saying this about the temple of his own body.… It also means that we now have a new way of life which has been given to us by Christ. For by baptism we have been buried together with Christ in order that we may henceforth live according to the life into which Christ rose from the dead. Therefore baptism is the sign and symbol of the resurrection, which means that we ought to abide in the commandments of Christ and not go back to what we were before. For the person who dies does not sin; death is the end of sin. This is symbolized by water, because just as water cleanses the dirt of the body, so we believe that we have been spiritually cleansed by baptism from every sin and renewed, for what is incorporeal is cleansed invisibly.

We therefore must also rise to a new life, so that, just as "Christ rose from the dead, so we too might walk in newness of life." Christ has freed us at this time from the hand of Pharaoh and has led us into the promised land; and as a sign of this the Passover is now eaten, because we have now been set free. We too must make the passage and begin a new life and not return to Egypt. Three things are necessary for any penitent, namely, that sin should displease him, and that he should be prepared to guard himself from sin with the help of God and the Holy Spirit, and that he should wish to make satisfaction according to the measure of his ability, and resolve never to repeat sin. And this is the consummation of these words: we must always be conformed to Christ and be refreshed with him, so that we may arrive at the eternal refreshment.

As we have been buried, so we must rise with Christ in a spiritual sense. For if to be buried together with Christ means dying to sin, then it is clear that rising with him means living in righteousness.

As Jesus died in taking away the sins of the world, that, by doing sin to death, he might rise in righteousness, so too, when you go down into the water and are, in a fashion, entombed in the water as he was in the rock, you may rise again to walk "in newness of life."

Here he hints, along with the duty of a careful walk, at the subject of the resurrection. In what way? Do you believe, he means, that Christ died, and that He was raised again? Believe then the same of thyself. For this is like to the other, since both Cross and Burial is thine. For if thou hast shared in Death and Burial, much more wilt thou in Resurrection and Life. For now the greater is done away with, the sin I mean, it is not right to doubt any longer about the lesser, the doing away of death.

But this he leaves for the present to the conscience of his hearers to reason out, but himself, after the resurrection to come had been set before us, demands of us another, even the new conversation, which is brought about in the present life by a change of habits. When then the fornicator becomes chaste, the covetous man merciful, the harsh subdued, even here a resurrection has taken place, the prelude to the other. And how is it a resurrection? Why, because sin is mortified, and righteousness hath risen again, and the old life hath been made to vanish, and this new and angelic one is being lived in. But when you hear of a new life, look for a great alteration, a wide change.

For the soul is not corruptible or mortal; but this which is mortal and corrupting is of flesh, in order that, "as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly? " For the image of the earthy which we have borne is this, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." But the image of the heavenly is the resurrection from the dead, and incorruption, in order that "as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also should walk in newness of life."

This is what the Apostle writes. Perhaps in the present passage this too may still be asked: if we have died to sin, and have been buried together with Christ, and have risen again with him, it will seem necessary, according to this pattern, to show how we too have spent three days and three nights buried with him in the heart of the earth. And consider whether we may be able to spend three days buried together with Christ when we have begun to have the full knowledge of the Trinity: for the Father is light, and in his light, which is the Son, we see the light of the Holy Spirit. And we spend three nights also when we destroy the father of darkness and ignorance together with the lie that was born of him, and "he is a liar, as also is his father, and when he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own." But in the third place also we destroy the spirit of error, which inspires the false prophets to say, "Thus says the Lord," whom the Lord has not sent. We destroy these things and trample them down, if we have been buried together with Christ, according also to that which he himself says: "Behold, I have given you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and upon all the power of the enemy." And these several things are so contrary to the Trinity as night is to day, and darkness to light, and falsehood to truth — these things, for the present, are what have been able to occur to us in this passage. But if anyone should have a better understanding, let him not be reluctant to set these aside and adopt those. Nevertheless, this is what is gathered from these words of the Apostle by the higher understanding: that just as no living person can be buried with a dead one, so no one who still lives to sin can be buried together in baptism with Christ, who died to sin; and therefore those who hasten to baptism ought first to take care of this, that they die beforehand to sin, and so may be able to be buried together with Christ through baptism, so that they too may say: "Always carrying about the death of Jesus Christ in our body, that the life of Jesus Christ also may be made manifest in our mortal flesh." But how the life of Jesus Christ is made manifest in the body, Paul himself shows when he says: "Yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me." This is the same thing that the apostle John writes in his Epistle, when he says: "Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God." In which, assuredly, it is not the one who has pronounced these syllables and uttered them in a common confession who will be seen to be moved by the Spirit of God, but the one who has so shaped his life, and so brought forth the fruits of work, that he has shown by the very religious quality of his deeds and thoughts that Christ has come in the flesh, and has died to sin, and lives to God. Now let us see, after we have opened up, so far as our strength allows, what it is to be buried together with Christ, this also which he says: "That as Christ rose from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life." If we have been buried together with Christ, according to what we have said above — that is, according as we have died to sin — then consequently, when Christ rises from the dead, we too shall rise together with him, and when he ascends to the heavens, we shall ascend together with him, and when he sits at the right hand of the Father, we shall be said to sit together with him in the heavenly places, according to what the same Apostle says elsewhere, that "he raised us up together with Christ, and made us sit together in the heavenly places." Christ rose through the glory of the Father; and we, if we have died to sin and been buried together with Christ, and all who see our good works glorify our Father who is in heaven, shall deservedly be said to have risen together with Christ through the glory of the Father, so that we may walk in newness of life. And newness of life is where we have put off "the old man with his deeds," and have put on "the new, who is created according to God," and "who is renewed in the knowledge" of God, "according to the image of him who created him." And do not suppose that the renewal of life, which is said to have been done once, is sufficient; but always, and daily, if it may be so said, that very newness must be renewed. For thus the Apostle says: "For even if our outward man is corrupted, yet the inward is renewed from day to day." For just as the old man always grows old, and from day to day becomes older, so also this new man is always renewed, and there is never a time when his renewal does not increase. Look, finally, at those who advance in faith and shine forth daily in the virtues, how they always add better things to good works, and seek out more honorable deeds than the honorable ones they have done, how they grow rich in understanding, in knowledge and wisdom, and how the things that before seemed less plain to the understanding they afterwards perceive as open and clear. And consider whether by these very facts you would not say that such a man is daily renewed; just as, on the contrary, as we have said, if anyone has begun to become old, he will advance for the worse, and will daily be found older and worse than himself. Let us therefore walk in newness of life, showing ourselves daily new to him who raised us up with Christ, and, so to speak, more beautiful, gathering the comeliness of our countenance in Christ as in a mirror, and beholding in him the glory of the Lord, let us be transformed into the same image, since Christ, rising from the dead, ascended from earthly lowliness to the glory of the Father's majesty. But further, as to what he said, "let us walk in newness of life," consider whether perhaps it points to this mystery: that so long as a person is making progress, he is said to walk. Yet it must not be thought that he is said to walk without end, but that those who walk in these advances come at some time to that place where they are to stand. Thus, in short, to Stephen, the first martyr, who had already come to the degree of perfection, Jesus Christ appeared standing at the right hand of the Power; and to Moses, who likewise, after many advances, had arrived at perfection, the Lord says: "But do you stand here with me." And Paul too, when he recognized in himself the consummation of perfection, says: "I have finished my course." But to those who think themselves perfect, and yet are not, he says: "Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall." To the imperfect, however, and to those who are still at the beginnings, it is said that they should walk after the Lord their God; and of others it is said: "I am unwilling to send them away fasting, lest perhaps they faint on the way."

Therefore Matthew recorded that the tomb was new, and set forth plainly that it was hewn in the rock. And that it was new, free from every dead body, Luke and John made manifest, one of whom indeed said: "in which no one had yet been laid", and John: "in which no one had yet been laid"—clearly, if never had anyone been laid there, but afterward some were laid there; for what he says: "in which no one had yet been laid", is signified to those who consider this word carefully. We say then (lest perhaps we ought to understand this passage simply), that he who said: "we have been buried together with Christ through baptism" and have risen together with him, was himself also buried together, after Christ, with Christ in a new tomb and an intelligible one hewn in the rock, and all who have been buried together with Christ in baptism, that they may rise with him from the new tomb of the firstborn "from the dead and holding the primacy in all things".

Paul shows that we were baptized so that through the sacrament we are buried with Christ, dying to our sins and renouncing our former life. So just as the Father is glorified in the resurrection of the Son, so too on account of the newness of our lifestyle he is glorified by us all, as long as none of the signs of the old self is recognizable in us. For now we should no longer want or desire anything that those who are not yet baptized and are still trapped in the errors of their old life want or desire.

For the dead sinner who hath gone down to baptism cometh up alive, even as Christ rose from the grave on the third day; but instead of becoming alive on the third day like our Lord, the sinner is renewed by three baptisms in three names. And as our Lord after His resurrection departed to a spiritual life from the corporeal life which He led before His crucifixion, so also the man, who hath been quickened into life by baptism as from the grave, walketh in a new life according to the doctrine of Paul.

"Newness of life" means that we have put off the old life of sin and that our rebirth promises a new way of life.

Every soul, then, by reason of its birth, has its nature in Adam until it is born again in Christ; moreover, it is unclean all the while that it remains without this regeneration; and because unclean, it is actively sinful, and suffuses even the flesh (by reason of their conjunction) with its own shame. Now although the flesh is sinful, and we are forbidden to walk in accordance with it, and its works are condemned as lusting against the spirit, and men on its account are censured as carnal, yet the flesh has not such ignominy on its own account. For it is not of itself that it thinks anything or feels anything for the purpose of advising or commanding sin. How should it, indeed? It is only a ministering thing, and its ministration is not like that of a servant or familiar friend-animated and human beings; but rather that of a vessel, or something of that kind: it is body, not soul. Now a cup may minister to a thirsty man; and yet, if the thirsty man will not apply the cup to his mouth, the cup will yield no ministering service. Therefore the differentia, or distinguishing property, of man by no means lies in his earthy element; nor is the flesh the human person, as being some faculty of his soul, and a personal quality; but it is a thing of quite a different substance and different condition, although annexed to the soul as a chattel or as an instrument for the offices of life. Accordingly the flesh is blamed in the Scriptures, because nothing is done by the soul without the flesh in operations of concupiscence, appetite, drunkenness, cruelty, idolatry, and other works of the flesh,-operations, I mean, which are not confined to sensations, but result in effects. The emotions of sin, indeed, when not resulting in effects, are usually imputed to the soul: "Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after, hath already in his heart committed adultery with her." But what has the flesh alone, without the soul, ever done in operations of virtue, righteousness, endurance, or chastity? What absurdity, however, it is to attribute sin and crime to that substance to which you do not assign any good actions or character of its own! Now the party which aids in the commission of a crime is brought to trial, only in such a way that the principal offender who actually committed the crime may bear the weight of the penalty, although the abettor too does not escape indictment. Greater is the odium which falls on the principal, when his officials are punished through his fault. He is beaten with more stripes who instigates and orders the crime, whilst at the same time he who obeys such an evil command is not acquitted.

The sacrament of baptism itself teaches us to turn away from sin. For baptism is a type of the death of Christ. In it we have become participants in the death and resurrection of Christ. Therefore, because we have shared in Christ's resurrection, we ought to live a new life now.

Christ died and rose again in the flesh, while we die to sin and rise again to virtue, so that just as Christ rose from the dead in the flesh "by the glory of the Father," that is, by His own Divinity (for the glory of the Father is the Son), so we too rise by another resurrection, that is, by a new way of life. Thus, when a fornicator becomes chaste, he represents death and resurrection — the death of vice and the resurrection and revival of virtue in the person.

Then when he says, for we are buried together, he proves that we are all baptized in conformity with the death of Christ, saying, we are buried together with him by baptism into death. As if to say: burial is only for the dead. Let the dead bury their dead (Matt 18:22). By baptism, however, men are buried with Christ, i.e., conformed to his burial. For just as a buried man is put under the earth, so one being baptized is submerged under water. Hence, there are three immersions in baptism not only to indicate belief in the Trinity but also to represent the three days of Christ's burial. And just as the three days of burial were one burial, so the triple immersion constitutes one baptism. That is also why solemn baptism is celebrated in the Church on Holy Saturday, when the burial of Christ is commemorated and on the vigil of Pentecost in honor of the Holy Spirit, from whom the water of baptism derives its power to cleanse: unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven (John 3:5).

Yet it must be noted that in the body one dies before he is buried, but in the spiritual order the burial of baptism causes the death of sin, because the Sacraments of the new law bring about what they signify. Hence, since the burial which occurs through baptism is a sign of the death of sin, it produces such a death in the baptized. And this is what he says, namely, that we are buried . . . into death, so that in receiving in ourselves the sign of Christ's burial we might obtain death to sin.

Then when he says, that, as Christ, he infers the consequent, namely, that we should not live in sin. To this end he adduces a likeness to the resurrection of Christ, saying that, as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, i.e., by the Father's power, whereby the Father himself is glorified: let your glory be over all the earth (Ps 57:5), so we also may walk in newness of life, i.e., advance in the spiritual life through good works. For the life of sin carries with it the weakness of old age, because it leads to dissolution: what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away (Heb 8:13); hence it is said: why is it, O Israel, that you are in the land of your enemies (Bar 3:10); but whatever leads to restoration, i.e., to being without sin, is called newness of life: your youth is renewed like the eagle's (Ps 103:5); be renewed in the spirit of your minds (Eph 4:25).

Happily Paul says that we can rise again if we have been united with Christ in the likeness of his death, i.e., if we have laid aside all our wickedness in baptism and, having been transferred into a new life, no longer sin. In this way we shall be like him in his resurrection, because the likeness of his death presupposes a similar resurrection.… The likeness does not mean that there will be no difference at all between us, of course. We will be like him in the glory of his body, not in the nature of his divinity.

Let him who lays his hands upon him adore God, the Lord of the whole world, and thank Him for His creation, for His sending Christ His only begotten Son, that He might save man by blotting out his transgressions, and that He might remit ungodliness and sins, and might "purify him from all filthiness of flesh and spirit," and sanctify man according to the good pleasure of His kindness, that He might inspire him with the knowledge of His will, and enlighten the eyes of his heart to consider of His wonderful works, and make known to him the judgments of righteousness, that so he might hate every way of iniquity, and walk in the way of truth, that he might be thought worthy of the layer of regeneration, to the adoption of sons, which is in Christ, that "being planted together in the likeness of the death of Christ," in hopes of a glorious communication, he may be mortified to sin, and may live to God, as to his mind, and word, and deed, and may be numbered together in the book of the living.

The perfect surrender and humiliation were undergone by Christ: perfect because He was God, surrender and humiliation because He was man. Now the Christian belief is that if we somehow share the humility and suffering of Christ we shall also share in His conquest of death and find a new life after we have died and in it become perfect, and perfectly happy, creatures.

And then, after being thus killed—killed every day in a sense—the human creature in Him, because it was united to the divine Son, came to life again. The Man in Christ rose again: not only the God. That is the whole point. For the first time we saw a real man. One tin soldier—real tin, just like the rest—had come fully and splendidly alive.

Emmanuel gave up his soul for us; he died in the flesh. We also were buried together with him when we were baptized. Does this mean that our flesh died in the same way as his did? Hardly. Come, let me explain in what sense we were buried with him in a death like his. Christ died in the flesh in order to remove the sin of the world, but we do not die to the flesh so much as to guilt, as it is written. Thus now we have to break down the power of sin within us by mortifying our earthly members.… As we have died a death like his, so we shall also be conformed to his resurrection, because we shall live in Christ. It is true that the flesh will come to life again, but still we shall live in another way, by dedicating our souls to him and by being transformed into holiness and a kind of glorious life in the Holy Spirit.

Those who have been validly baptized into Christ's death have been united to him by faith.

Christ's baptism in the Jordan was a type of the mystery of his resurrection.

Paul did not say "in death" but "in a death like his." For both the first and the second are death but not the death of the same thing. The first is the death of the body, the second is the death of sin.

What I had before occasion to remark, that I mention here too, that he continually digresseth into exhortation, without making any twofold division as he does in the other Epistles, and setting apart the former portion for doctrines, and the latter for the care of moral instruction. Here then he does not do so, but blends the latter with the subject throughout, so as to gain it an easy admission. Here then he says there are two mortifyings, and two deaths, and that one is done by Christ in Baptism, and the other it is our duty to effect by earnestness afterwards. For that our former sins were buried, came of His gift. But the remaining dead to sin after baptism must be the work of our own earnestness, however much we find God here also giving us large help. For this is not the only thing Baptism has the power to do, to obliterate our former transgressions; for it also secures against subsequent ones. As then in the case of the former, thy contribution was faith that they might be obliterated, so also in those subsequent to this, show thou forth the change in thine aims, that thou mayest not defile thyself again. For it is this and the like that he is counselling thee when he says, "for if we have been planted together in the likeness of His Death, we shall be also in the likeness of His Resurrection." Do you observe, how he rouses the hearer by leading him straightway up to his Master, and taking great pains to show the strong likeness? This is why he does not say "in death," lest you should gainsay it, but, "in the likeness of His Death." For our essence itself hath not died, but the man of sins, that is, wickedness. And he does not say, "for if we have been" partakers of "the likeness of His Death;" but what? "If we have been planted together," so, by the mention of planting, giving a hint of the fruit resulting to us from it. For as His Body, by being buried in the earth, brought forth as the fruit of it the salvation of the world; thus ours also, being buried in baptism, bore as fruit righteousness, sanctification, adoption, countless blessings. And it will bear also hereafter the gift of the resurrection. Since then we were buried in water, He in earth, and we in regard to sin, He in regard to His Body, this is why he did not say, "we were planted together in His Death," but "in the likeness of His Death." For both the one and the other is death, but not that of the same subject. If then he says, "we have been planted together in His Death, we shall be in that of His Resurrection," speaking here of the Resurrection which is to come. For since when he was upon the subject of the Death before, and said, "Know ye not, brethren, that so many of us as were baptized into Christ were baptized into His Death?" he had not made any clear statement about the Resurrection, but only about the way of life after baptism, bidding men walk in newness of life; therefore he here resumes the same subject, and proceeds to foretell to us clearly that Resurrection.

See the goodness of God. We have died Christ's death metaphorically, but we shall share his resurrection truly.

"For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall also be [planted together in the likeness] of his resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified together with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, so that we should no longer serve sin. For he who has died has been justified from sin." All these things look back to that question, lest he should seem to have given occasion for sinning in what he said: "But where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more." For it is on this account that he says both that we are dead to sin, and that whoever of us have been baptized into Christ have been baptized into his death; and now he writes that we have been planted together into the likeness of his death, adding that if we bear the likeness of his death, by which he died to sin, we ought also to hope for the likeness of his resurrection. But he shows in what way this can come about, saying that our old man must be crucified together with Christ. And our old man is to be understood as the former life which we led in sins, of which we make an end and, as it were, a destruction when we receive within ourselves the faith of Christ's cross, through which the body of sin is so destroyed that our members, which used to serve sin, no longer serve it, but God. But now, taking up the discussion again, let us see what it is to be planted together in the likeness of Christ's death — in which phrase he presents Christ's death as, so to speak, the planting of some tree, with which he wishes us to be planted together, so that our root also, receiving from the sap of his root, may put forth branches of righteousness and bear the fruits of life. But if you wish to learn from the Scriptures what this plant is with which we ought to be planted together, and of what kind the tree is, hear what is written concerning Wisdom: "She is," he says, "a tree of life to all who hope in her; and those who trust in her are as in the Lord." Christ therefore, the power of God and the wisdom of God, is himself the tree of life, with which we ought to be planted together; and by a certain new and lovable gift of God his death becomes for us a tree of life. And the Apostle rightly, knowing that in the present passage he is treating not of this common death but of the death of sin, did not say, "For if we have been planted together" with his death, but "with the likeness of his death." For Christ so died once to sin that he committed no sin at all, nor was guile found in his mouth. And this can in no way be found in its entirety in any other human being. For "no one is clean from sin, not even if his life has been of a single day." Therefore, by that very death by which Jesus died to sin, so that he committed no sin at all, we cannot die in such a way that we know sin not at all; yet we can have the likeness of it, so that by imitating him and following his footsteps we may keep ourselves from sin. This, then, is what human nature is able to receive: that it should come to be in the likeness of his death, while by imitating him it does not sin. For to be altogether and entirely ignorant of sin belongs to Christ alone. But certain of the heretics, not understanding this, have tried to assert from this passage of the Apostle that Christ did not truly die, but had a likeness of death, and seemed to die rather than truly died. Since it is very easy to answer them, I do not think it necessary to bring to bear the weight of testimonies from the other sayings either of the Apostle or of the Gospels, where his death, and not a likeness of death, is written of plainly, since we can say to them: If it was a likeness of death, and not a true death, then there was a likeness of resurrection also, and not a true resurrection; and so we too shall seem to rise and shall not truly rise; and we shall seem to die to sin and shall not truly die. And so everything that has been done, and is being done, has seemed to be done but has not been done. It remains, then, that in the matter of our being saved also, we have seemed to be saved but have not truly been saved. Wherefore, since these things are so absurd that they need no proofs, let us turn to the explanation of what follows. He wishes us, therefore, to be planted together with the likeness of his death, by which he died once to sin, so that we may also be planted together with his resurrection — for "planted together" must be supplied with both. And see how fittingly he has taken up the figure of planting. For every plant, after the death of winter, awaits the resurrection of spring. If then we too have been planted together in Christ's death in the winter of this age and of the present life, we shall also be found, when the spring to come arrives, bringing forth fruits of righteousness from his root; and if we have been planted together with him, it is necessary that the Father, the husbandman, prune us as branches of the true vine, that we may bear much fruit, as he himself also says in the Gospels: "I am the true vine, you are the branches, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch that does not abide in me, my Father will cut it off. But him who abides in me, he will prune, that he may bear much fruit." In this way, therefore, we have been planted together with the likeness of his death, so that we may also be planted together with the likeness of his resurrection. And what it is to be planted together with the likeness of his resurrection, the apostle John teaches: "Little children, we do not yet know what we shall be. But if he is revealed to us, we shall be like him." And again the Savior himself says: "Father, I will that where I am, these also may be with me"; and again: "As I am in you, and you in me, that these also may be one in us." This he certainly says of those who in the present life have been planted together with the likeness of his death. And I think that this may fittingly be said also of that thief who hung on the cross together with Jesus; and through his confession, in which he said, "Remember me, Lord, when you come into your kingdom," and through his rebuking of the other who blasphemed, he is seen by these things to have been planted together with the likeness of his death; but he was also planted together with his resurrection through this, that it is said to him, "Today you shall be with me in paradise." For worthy indeed was that plant of paradise, which was joined to the tree of life.

But as to the fact that in other places the Apostle says that we have already risen with Christ, and been raised up together with him, and sit together in the heavenly places, while here he says: "For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be so also of his resurrection" — that is, what he elsewhere said had already happened, here he now says is future and to be hoped for — the reason is this, that a twofold resurrection is understood: one by which in mind and purpose and faith we rise with Christ from earthly things, so that we may think upon heavenly things and seek after those to come; the other, the general resurrection in the flesh which will be of all. Therefore the resurrection which is according to the mind and from faith already seems to be fulfilled in those who savor "the things that are above," "where Christ is at the right hand of God." But that general resurrection of the flesh which pertains to all is still to come: because the one is fulfilled at the Lord's first coming, the other at his second.

If we are buried with Christ now, we shall be united with him in his resurrection then, and if we have already become new and been changed in our way of life now, we shall likewise be new and changed in glory then.

We die figuratively in our baptism, but we shall rise again in reality in our flesh, even as Christ did.

He did not say: partook of the likeness of His death, but says "united," indicating by the word "union" the fruit of Christ's death in us. The body of Christ, buried in the earth, brought forth the fruit of salvation. Since we are buried in water, while Christ in the earth, and moreover we are buried to sin, while He in body, he did not say "death," but "the likeness of death." Therefore we shall also be partakers of the resurrection, inheriting eternal life, as those who have shown forth the resurrection consisting in good works.

Then when he says, for if we, he shows how the consequence follows necessarily. For after he died, Christ arose; hence it is fitting that those who are conformed to Christ's death in baptism should be conformed also to his resurrection by leading a blameless life. And that is what he says: for if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, i.e., if we are incorporated into his death as a branch is grafted to a tree, then, as we are united with Christ in his passion, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection, so as to live blamelessly in our present life and to attain to a glory similar to his in the future life: he will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body (Phil 3:21); if we have died with him, we shall also live with him (2 Tim 2:11). Thus, after using our likeness to the death of Christ to prove that we are dead to sin, the Apostle uses our likeness to the resurrection of Christ to show that we should not live in sin; which he introduces above as a consequence.

Until, therefore, this price should have been paid for all men which by the shedding of the Lords Blood had to be so paid for the absolution of all, the blood of every man, who, by the Law and solemn custom were to follow the precepts of holy religion, was required. But, since one Lord Christ suffered, seeing that the ransom is now paid for all, there is now no longer any need that the blood of every man one by one should be shed by circumcision, for in the Blood of Christ the circumcision of all has been solemnized, and in His Cross we are all crucified together with Him, and buried in His sepulchre, and planted together in the likeness of His death, that henceforth we should not serve sin: for he that is dead, is free from sin.

Paul underlines and repeats a good deal in order to teach the baptized that they must not sin and above all that they must not return to idolatry, which is a very serious crime and the root of all errors, lest they lose the grace which they have received through Christ. He calls our former behavior "our old self" because, just as the man who has a pure life through Christ and faith in him is said to be new, so the same man is said to be old through unbelief and evil deeds. Paul says that these deeds have been crucified, which means that they are dead, that the body of sin (i.e., all our misdeeds) has been destroyed. Paul calls all our sins a body, which he says has been destroyed by a good life and by orthodox belief.

This refers to Deuteronomy [21:23]: "Cursed be every man hanged from a tree." For as the crucifixion of the old man is symbolized in the cross of the Lord, so the rebirth of the new man is signified in the resurrection. It is clear that according to Paul we are in the place of the old man who is accursed. No one doubts that it was because of him that the Lord was called "sin," because "he bore our sins" and "he was made sin for us," and "by sin he condemned sin."

By these words we are taught that he who is baptized in Christ is baptized in his death and is not only buried with Christ and planted together with him but is first of all crucified with him. Thus we are instructed that, as he who is crucified is separated from the living, so also he who has been crucified with Christ in the likeness of his death is completely set apart from those who live according to the old man.

But to us the apostle says, "Now we know this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.". For "to bring themselves into captivity "and to slay themselves, putting to death "the old man, who is through lusts corrupt "and raising the new man from death, "from the old conversation "by abandoning the passions, and becoming free of sin, both the Gospel and the apostle enjoin.

Perhaps some people will think that "the body of sin" is meant to refer to our earthly flesh, which has been joined to the soul as a kind of punishment, in that the soul sinned before bodies were created. Some people think and talk like this, but as it is a pagan idea we must reject it as being incompatible with the truth. Therefore, Paul says that our earthly body is the body of sin and our old man, because it has inherited the necessity of corruption from the old Adam.… Moreover, because of its weakness it has contracted a love for wickedness, and thus sin appears in the flesh as a congenital defect.We were crucified with Christ at the moment when his flesh was crucified, because it somehow included universal human nature in itself, just as universal human nature contracted the sickness of the curse in Adam at the same time that he incurred the curse.

"Our old self" refers to our perishable and passible bodies.

Get for yourself none of the things that are on earth, and do not be active in the affairs of the present life. For your life is hidden now and unseen by those who do not believe, but the time will come when it will be seen. But now is not your time. Since you have died once for all, refuse to mind the things that are on earth. The greatness of your virtue is seen especially when you have prevailed over the arrogance of the flesh and act toward the good things of the world just as if you were dead to this life.

So putting together both the cause and the demonstration of the Resurrection which is to come. And he does not say is crucified, but is crucified with Him, so bringing baptism near to the Cross. And on this score also it was that he said above, "We have been planted together in the likeness of His Death that the body of sin might be destroyed," not giving that name to this body of ours, but to all iniquity. For as he calls the whole sum of wickedness the old man, thus again the wickedness which is made up of the different parts of iniquity he calls the body of that man. And that what I am saying is not mere guesswork, hearken to Paul's own interpretation of this very thing in what comes next. For after saying, "that the body of sin might be destroyed," he adds, "that henceforth we should not serve sin." For the way in which I would have it dead is not so that ye should be destroyed and die, but so that ye sin not. And as he goes on he makes this still clearer.

Therefore, what the Apostle had said about being planted together with the likeness of Christ's death, he now takes up again under another figure, and says: "Because our old man was crucified together with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed." In many places, and often already, we have said what it is to be crucified together with Christ; and we have often treated of the old man; whence briefly in the present passage we call the old man the one who lived according to Adam, liable to transgression and to sin, and over whom the death of sin held dominion, of whom he who had the power of death held the bonds of sin: and since Christ, blotting these out with his blood, nailed them to his cross, we too, according to the old man who was liable to sin, ought to be crucified, "that the body of sin might be destroyed, and that we should no longer serve sin." And I think it must be observed that where the Apostle says that the "body" must be destroyed, he adds "of sin"; but where he does not speak of destroying, he says not "the body of sin," but that it is we ourselves who should not serve sin — so that he may show that if the body of sin has been destroyed, we no longer serve sin, to which of course we were in servitude so long as it had not been destroyed in us, and our members which are upon the earth had not been mortified.

But we must still go back and consider more carefully in what sense he said "the body of sin." Here a twofold understanding seems possible: either he called our body the body of sin, or he means that sin itself has some body of its own, which must be destroyed by those who ought no longer to serve sin. Since, then, both senses can be admitted in this passage, we shall set forth our view on each. For if we posit that sin has a body of its own, it will appear that, just as it was said of those who have been restored into the new man that "you are the body of Christ, and members in part," so also of those who have not yet crucified the old man it may be said that they are the body of sin and its members, of which body the head is the devil, just as Christ is head of the body of the Church, which has neither spot nor wrinkle. And the members of which this body of sin consists may be seen to be those which the Apostle above enumerated as members upon the earth, that is, fornication, uncleanness, shamelessness, avarice, contentions, wrath, deceits, quarrels, dissensions, heresies, envy, revellings, and the like: of all which members it may fittingly be said that the body of sin consists, and that this body is called the old man. And if anyone should destroy it through the cross of Christ, and be changed into the new man who is created according to God, he will no longer be said to serve sin — to which without doubt he does serve so long as he lies under any of those things which we have expounded above to be the members of sin. But if instead the Apostle is understood to have called this body of ours the body of sin, it will surely be taken according to that understanding by which David also says of himself, "I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins did my mother conceive me." But the Apostle himself too says in another place, "Who will free me from the body of this death?" and again he names our body "the body of humiliation." And of the Savior he says in a certain place that he came "in the likeness of the flesh of sin," that "from sin" he might condemn "sin in the flesh." In which he shows that our flesh is indeed flesh of sin, but Christ's flesh is like the flesh of sin. For it was not conceived from the seed of a man, but the Holy Spirit came upon Mary, and the power of the Most High overshadowed her, so that what was born of her should be called the Son of the Highest. Thus, then, Paul, through the ineffable wisdom of God which was given to him, gazing upon some hidden and secret thing I know not what, calls our body "the body of sin," and "the body of death," and "the body of humiliation." But David also, knowing the heavenly secrets by the same Spirit, said concerning the body: "And you have led me down into the dust of death"; and again: "Our soul has been humbled in the dust." Jeremiah likewise, aware of a similar mystery through the Spirit of God, says in his Lamentations that all men are prisoners of the earth — that is, on account of the body — and he says: "That he might humble under his feet all the prisoners of the earth, because they have turned aside the judgment of a man in the sight of the Most High, and have condemned a man in judging." The body of sin, therefore, is our body; since neither is Adam written to have known Eve his wife and to have begotten Cain except after the sin. Finally, in the law also a sacrifice is commanded to be offered for the little child that has been born, a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons: of which one is for sin, and the other for a whole burnt offering. For what sin is this one young bird offered? Can a newly born infant already have sinned? And yet it has a sin for which a sacrifice is commanded to be offered, from which sin no one is said to be clean, not even if his life has been of a single day. Of this, therefore, David too must be believed to have spoken that which we mentioned above, that "in sins did my mother conceive me." For according to the historical narrative no sin of his mother is disclosed. For this reason the Church also received a tradition from the apostles, to give baptism even to little children. For those to whom the secrets of the divine mysteries were committed knew that there are in all people inborn defilements of sin, which must be washed away by water and the Spirit; on account of which the body itself is also named the body of sin — not (as some of those think who introduce the transmigration of souls into various bodies) for those things which the soul, placed in another body, has committed, but for this very thing, that it has come to be in a body of sin and a body of death and of humiliation; and, as he said, that "you have humbled our soul in the dust." These, meanwhile, are the things concerning the body of sin that could occur to us for the present. But which of the two expositions suits the apostolic sense, or whether neither does, let the one who reads judge.

Through baptism you who have been made a member of Christ's body were crucified with Christ. He hangs his innocent body so that you may have the power to restrain your guilty body from sin. Similarly, Moses lifted up the bronze serpent in the wilderness so that every form of wickedness might be torn down, because each vice is a member of the body of sin. Christ was not crucified in part but in whole. Or perhaps we should read this as meaning that our body should be torn away from slavery to sin and that what used to be the property of transgression should now become the property of righteousness, for "everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin."

Now because John was to be worthy of the knowledge of the Apostles before the dissolution of the curse, and the abrogation of sin, and the matter of the Cross, he rightly received the Spirit in the womb, and he had the growth which was outside the world in order that by these means he might attain unto the natural innocency which the first man possessed before he transgressed the commandment, and that by this innocency of soul he might receive the knowledge of Divine mysteries. And when in the unspeakable depth of the love of God the Redemption was completed, the Person of God Himself stood in the midst like a freeman with power, and with His own hand He annulled the things which were old, and inaugurated those which were new, and the old man died upon the Cross, according to that which is written by Paul, "Our old man was crucified with Him," and the new man was revealed, and made known, and became visible, and not only that which was worthy of the dwelling of Paradise, after the manner of the first Adam, but that which was worthy to dwell also in heaven, and to go round about among spiritual beings, and to be like unto them in every thing. And therefore after this those who are experienced in all wickednesses, and tax-gatherers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and thieves, and worshippers of creatures, Grace seizeth suddenly, and without either plans or preparations maketh them worthy of the wealth of its mysteries, as in a new nature, it worketh in whomsoever it pleaseth, because the old man hath been crucified, and is dead, according to the word of Paul.

This refers not to our body structure but to our moral behavior.… It is not our bodily frame which has been transformed, nor has our flesh endured the cross of Christ. The sinful body is destroyed by amendment of life, not by the destruction of our fleshly substance.

For that must be living after the world, which, as the old man, he declares to be "crucified with Christ," not as a bodily structure, but as moral behaviour.

Besides, if we do not understand it in this sense, it is not our bodily frame which has been transfixed (at all events), nor has our flesh endured the cross of Christ; but the sense is that which he has subjoined, "that the body of sin might be made void, " by an amendment of life, not by a destruction of the substance, as he goes on to say, "that henceforth we should not serve sin; " and that we should believe ourselves to be "dead with Christ," in such a manner as that "we shall also live with Him.

The "old man" does not refer to our nature but to our evil mind. It is this which has been put to death in baptism, so that the body would not continue to serve sin.

"Our old man," that is, wickedness, "is crucified with Him," that is, like the body of Christ, is buried in baptism; "that the body of sin might be destroyed," that is, the wickedness composed of various kinds, or our body inclined to sin, which is why he adds: "that we should no longer be slaves to sin." I desire, he says, that the body be dead, not in the sense that it be destroyed, but that it not sin.

After showing that we should not continue to sin after baptism has made us dead to sin, the Apostle now shows that we have the means to do this. Concerning this he does two things. First, he indicates the benefit we have received; second, the effect of this benefit, at for he that is dead. Concerning the first he does two things. First he sets out the benefit we obtain; Second, the effect of this benefit, at that the body of sin.

First, therefore: we have said that the baptized should walk in newness of life, namely, by desisting from sin. To anyone who says that this is impossible he responds, knowing this, that our old man, i.e., the oldness caused by sin, is crucified, i.e., put to death by the cross of Christ, with him, namely, with Christ. For as was stated above, man's oldness was brought about by sin—in the sense that the goodness of his nature was corrupted by sin—and is predominant as long as he continues in sin. But because what is predominant in a man characterizes the man himself, it follows that the oldness of sin in a man subject to sin is an apt description of the man himself. That is why he says the old self.

Now the oldness of sin can refer to the guilt of sin or to the stain of actual sins or even to the habit of sinning, which engenders a sort of compulsion to sin, or even to the fomes, or concupiscence, deriving from the sin of the first parent. Thus, therefore, our old self is said to be crucified together with Christ, inasmuch as the aforesaid oldness is removed by the power of Christ; either because it has been entirely removed, as the guilt and stain of sin are entirely removed in baptism, or because its force has been diminished, i.e., the force of the fomes or even of the custom of sinning: having canceled the bond which stood against us with its legal demands; this he set aside, nailing it to the cross (Col 2:14).

Then when he says, that the body of sin, he mentions the twofold effect of this benefit, the first of which is the removal of previous sins. Hence he says: that the body of sin may be destroyed. The body of sin is the assemblage of evil deeds, just as the assemblage of members makes one natural body: his body is like molten shields (Job 41:6). The second effect is that it makes us beware of future sins; hence, he adds: to the end that we may serve sin no longer. For a man is a slave of sin, when he obeys the concupiscence of sin by consenting to and doing the sin: everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin (John 8:34).

He is set free, he is delivered, he is cleansed of all sin, and not sin in word and deed only but also of all irrational movements of the mind.

Wherefore also He drove him out of Paradise, and removed him far from the tree of life, not because He envied him the tree of life, as some venture to assert, but because He pitied him, [and did not desire] that he should continue a sinner for ever, nor that the sin which surrounded him should be immortal, and evil interminable and irremediable. But He set a bound to his [state of] sin, by interposing death, and thus causing sin to cease, putting an end to it by the dissolution of the flesh, which should take place in the earth, so that man, ceasing at length to live to sin, and dying to it, might begin to live to God.

But He set a bound to his [state of] sin, by interposing death, and thus causing sin to cease, putting an end to it by the dissolution of the flesh, which should take place in the earth, so that man, ceasing at length to live to sin, and dying to it, might begin to live to God.

This he says of every man, that as he that is dead is henceforth freed from sinning, lying as a dead body, so must he that has come up from baptism, since he has died there once for all, remain ever dead to sin. If then thou hast died in baptism, remain dead, for any one that dies can sin no more; but if thou sinnest, thou marrest God's gift. After requiring of us then heroism of this degree, he presently brings in the crown also.

Freed means "alienated" from sin, for the dead do not sin in any way. "No one born of God commits sin," for since he has been crucified and all his members are filled with regret, he will hardly be able to sin.

Whoever saw a dead man sleeping in some harlot's bed, or bloodying his hands with murder, or doing anything else which is sinful?

"For he who has died has been freed from sin." This he says of the whole man. As "he who has died has been freed from sin," that is, has been delivered, is free, so also you, who have been baptized and have died to sin, remain dead.

Then when he says, for he that is dead, he clarifies what he had said: first, in regard to the first effect; second, in regard to the second, at now, if we be dead.

In regard to the first it should be noted that the assemblage of sins is destroyed when a man has his sins remitted. So he clarifies how the body of sin is destroyed when he says, he that is dead to sin through baptism, in which we die together with Christ, is justified from sin, i.e., transferred to the state of justice: and such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified (1 Cor 6:11). Therefore, because man dies to sin through the cross of Christ, he is freed from sin in such a way that the body of sin is destroyed.

It is clear that those who have crucified the body, i.e., the world with its vices and lusts, die to the world and die together with Christ, and that they are also conformed to his eternal and saving life so that they might deserve to be made like Christ in his glory. But the flesh, i.e., the body, is crucified in such a way that the lusts which arise in it as a result of the sin in it, which comes from the transgression of the first man, are trampled underfoot. For the devil is crucified in our flesh; it is he who deceives us through the flesh. But note how the word flesh is sometimes to be understood as the world, i.e., the elements, sometimes as the human body and sometimes as the soul which follows corporeal vices.

And indeed even before the crown, this is in itself the greater crown, the partaking with our Master. But he says, I give even another reward. Of what kind is it? It is life eternal. For "we believe," he says, "that we shall also live with Him." And whence is this clear?

"But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live together with him, knowing that Christ rising from the dead dies no more, death shall no longer have dominion over him. For in that he died to sin, he died once; but in that he lives, he lives to God." In everything the Apostle has said above, he wished to show this: that if Christ died to sin, we too have died to sin along with him. And when he says, "we were baptized into his death," and, "we have been planted together in the likeness of his death," through all these things he shows that we have died with Christ to sin, from the fact that Christ indeed died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and to each one of the believers he granted out of his own death, as a kind of gift of faith, the death of sin itself — that is, to those who believe themselves to be dead with him and crucified and buried together with him, and through these things sin cannot work in them as in dead persons, and thus they are said to be dead to sin. Therefore, then, in the present passage the Apostle draws the conclusion of everything he had established above, and says: "But if we have died with Christ," namely through those things which we have shown above, "we believe that we shall also live together with him." He did not say: and we have lived together, as he said, "we have died"; but, "we shall live together," so as to show that death is at work in the present, but life in the future — namely, then "when Christ shall have been made manifest, who is our life hidden in God." Now "therefore," as Paul himself teaches, "death works in us." But even this death that works in us seems to me to have certain distinctions. For just as in Christ there was one time of death, of which it is said, "And crying out with a loud voice he expired," and another when he lay placed in the tomb with the door closed, and another indeed when, sought in the sepulcher, he was not found, because he had already risen — of which resurrection the visible beginning was granted to no one of humankind — so also in us who believe in him this threefold account of death is to be held. And first, indeed, the death of Christ must be shown in us by the confession of the voice, when "with the heart one believes unto righteousness, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." Second, in the mortification of the members which are upon the earth, when we now always carry about the mortification of Christ in our body; and this is what he says, that "death works in us." Third, when we now rise from the dead, and walk in newness of life. And to explain it more briefly and more clearly: the first day of death is to have renounced the world; the second, to have renounced also the vices of the flesh; but the fullness of perfection in the light of wisdom is the third day, that of resurrection. Yet these distinctions in each of the believers, and the degrees of their progress, he alone can know and discern to whom alone the secrets of the heart lie open. But do you observe Paul's wisdom in writing: he who, writing to Timothy, said that "if we die together, we shall also live together"; and who, to those dying together with Christ, joined as something consequent and necessary that they should live together with him — here he added, "we believe," so as to show that although it is consequent and necessary for one who dies together to live together, nevertheless this is accomplished through the mediation of faith and of believing.

If we have not died with him we shall not live with him, because then we are not his members.

Those of us who were buried with Christ ought to die to sin, because we are waiting for the resurrection.

Here, it would seem, there is a repetition of what was said; but in reality there is not. Above, the apostle said that we must always remain dead to sin, and now he reasons about the resurrection of the new life according to God, which we must always have. If through baptism we died with Christ, then we believe that we shall always have the resurrection belonging to us, consisting in the new life.

Then when he says, now, if we be dead, he clarifies the second effect by showing how it conforms one to the life of Christ. The reasoning is this: one who dies with the dying Christ also lives with the rising Christ. But Christ rose from the dead, in such a way that he will never die again. Therefore, one who has died to sin lives with the risen Christ in such a way that he has the faculty of never returning to sin.

In regard to this he does three things: first, he shows the believer's conformity to the risen Christ; second, he gives a condition of this life, at knowing that Christ; third, he draws the intended conclusion, at so do you also.

First, therefore, he says, now, if we be dead with Christ, i.e., if we are dead to sin by virtue of Christ's death, we believe that we shall live also together with Christ, i.e., in the likeness of his life. We shall live, I say, the life of grace here and the life of glory in the future: when we were dead through sin, he made us alive together with Christ (Eph 2:5).

When death first had dominion over Christ, it was only with his consent.

For this sacrifice doth especially save our souls from everlasting damnation, which in mystery doth renew unto us the death of the Son of God: who although being risen from death, doth not now die any more, nor death shall not any further prevail against him: yet living in himself immortally, and without all corruption, he is again sacrificed for us in this mystery of the holy oblation: for there his body is received, there his flesh is distributed for the salvation of the people: there his blood is not now shed betwixt the hands of infidels, but poured into the mouths of the faithful.

He declares in the plainest manner, that the same Being who was laid hold of, and underwent suffering, and shed His blood for us, was both Christ and the Son of God, who did also rise again, and was taken up into heaven, as he himself [Paul] says: "But at the same time, [it is] Christ [that] died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God." And again, "Knowing that Christ, rising from the dead, dieth no more:" for, as himself foreseeing, through the Spirit, the subdivisions of evil teachers [with regard to the Lord's person], and being desirous of cutting away from them all occasion of cavil, he says what has been already stated, [and also declares: ] "But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies." This he does not utter to those alone who wish to hear: Do not err, [he says to all: ] Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is one and the same, who did by suffering reconcile us to God, and rose from the dead; who is at the right hand of the Father, and perfect in all things; "who, when He was buffeted, struck not in return; who, when He suffered, threatened not;" and when He underwent tyranny, He prayed His Father that He would forgive those who had crucified Him. For He did Himself truly bring in salvation: since He is Himself the Word of God, Himself the Only-begotten of the Father, Christ Jesus our Lord.

And notice again his undauntedness, and how he makes the thing good from opposite grounds. Since then it was likely that some would feel perplexed at the Cross and the Death, he shows that this very thing is a ground for feeling confident henceforward. For suppose not, he says, because He once died, that He is mortal, for this is the very reason of His being immortal. For His death hath been the death of death, and because He did die, He therefore doth not die.

Being certain, he says, and "knowing that Christ rising from the dead dies no more." For if he were to die again, then just as we have shown it to be consequent and necessary that those who die together with him shall also live together with him, so without doubt it would seem consequent that, if after resurrection and life he were to die again, those also who live together with him would die again together with him as he died. Therefore, for this reason the Apostle determines by an absolute pronouncement that Christ dies no more, so that those also who live together with him may be secure concerning the eternity of life. But after these things (that I too may use the very words of the Apostle, in which he says: "But Isaiah is bold and says"), I too say: But Paul is bold and says: "Death shall no longer have dominion over him." Did you dare to say this, O Paul, concerning Christ, "Death shall no longer have dominion over him," as though at some time it had had dominion? — over him whose voice in the Gospel is carried through the whole body of the Church clearer than light, in which he says: "No one takes my soul from me, but I lay it down, and I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again." Do you then say that death had dominion over him who not only laid down his soul by his will, but also took it up by his power? who alone among the dead was "free," and whom alone death could not hold? These things, I suppose, and things like them, will be raised against Paul by those who are held by a tender affection toward Jesus, and endure to hear nothing lowly, nothing unworthy concerning him. But we too, when we look to Paul, do not think there is anyone who could surpass him in love of Christ: whence neither is he to be thought to have spoken anything about him contrary to what is worthy of him. And therefore let us search out more subtly, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, the word of wisdom by which we may be able to perceive Paul's meaning — nay rather, the mind of Christ which is in him, according to what he himself professes: "But we have the mind of Christ." Someone, then, may say more concisely on these matters that here he speaks of this common and middle death by which "he died," as the same Apostle says, "according to the Scriptures," and that nothing seems absurd if he who had taken up the form of a servant endured the dominion of death, which without doubt has dominion over all who, placed in the flesh, are reckoned under the servile form. But this too lies close to this assertion: that for this reason this form of a servant, that is, our very flesh also, is sown in corruption, that it may rise in incorruption; and is sown in weakness, that it may rise in power; and is sown in dishonor, that it may rise in glory; and is sown an animal body, that it may rise a spiritual body — without doubt so that death may no longer have dominion over it, which had dominion over it while it was in weakness, and dishonor, and corruption. For concerning such flesh as is still in these vices of the passions, Paul himself says: "That flesh and blood cannot possess the kingdom of God, neither shall corruption possess incorruption." But also as to the fact that elsewhere the same Apostle named the body a body "of death," he who asserts these things says that this is to be understood of this middle death, which has dominion over a body of this kind so long as it is animal and corruptible, and not yet changed through the glory of the resurrection, and made incorruptible out of corruptible, and glorious out of ignoble. But that which is very much contrary to this assertion (that is, that we have died with Christ, and have been buried together with him — which certainly can in no way be understood of this common death), he will attempt to explain in this manner: that just as in the foregoing, when we were expounding concerning the diversity of laws, we showed that the Apostle in one and the same place names now the natural law, now that of Moses, now also that of sin, and taught by adducing testimonies from other places as well that this is the usage of divine Scripture, so also in the present passage he may establish that by the Apostle there is named now the common death, now that of sin, now also the very author of death, who is likewise said to be the last enemy to be destroyed, now also the place of the underworld, in which the devil is said to hold the empire of death.

Here too, then, what he says — "Death shall no longer have dominion over him" — one will maintain was said of that death by which Christ is commonly believed to have died. Yet how sound this assertion may be, let the one who reads it test. But another, who by the power of the Spirit looks into the deeper sense of Paul in these matters, will say that the death spoken of here, over which it is said that it shall no longer have dominion over Christ, is to be understood as that last enemy himself, who was prefigured by that whale which had swallowed Jonah, concerning which it is written in Job: "But let him curse it who cursed that day, he who is to destroy the great whale" — into which death Christ entered as Jonah into the belly of the whale, that is, into that place which the Savior himself named the heart of the earth, in which he says that the Son of man, after the example of Jonah, would spend three days and three nights, in order that he might bring out those who were there held fast by death. For he had taken the form of a servant precisely for this, that he might be able to enter that very place where death held its kingdom, according to what the Prophet also says in his person: "And I was counted with those who go down into the pit"; and again: "What profit is there in my blood, while I go down into corruption?" And that this may be perceived still more plainly, we shall once more make use of a comparison of this sort. Let us suppose a just and noble king who wishes to wage war against some unjust tyrant in such a way that he may not seem to have conquered by a violent and bloody encounter, because those serving under the tyrant were his own, whom he desired not to destroy but to set free. Therefore, by a better plan, he assumes the appearance of those who were with the tyrant, and in outward form becomes in all respects like them, until, placed under the tyrant's dominion, he might persuade those who obeyed him to depart and return to the lawful kingdom; and might at the opportune moment bind the strong man himself, and strip off his powers and principalities, and tear away and carry off the captivity that was held by him. In this way, then, Christ also, by his own will indeed, "emptied himself" at that time, and "took the form of a servant," and endured the tyrant's dominion, "becoming obedient unto death": and by that death he destroyed him who had the empire of death, that is, the devil, that he might free those who were held by death. For here, when the strong man had been bound and triumphed over on his cross, he went on even into his house, into the house of death, into hell, and from there plundered his vessels, that is, he drew out the souls which he was holding. And this is what he himself was saying through riddles in the Gospel when he said: "Who can enter into the house of the strong man and plunder his vessels, unless he first bind the strong man?" First, then, he bound him on the cross, and so entered his house, that is, hell, and thence "ascending on high, he led captivity captive" — namely those who rose with him and entered the holy city, the heavenly Jerusalem. Whence the Apostle rightly says in the present passage that "death shall no longer have dominion over him." For he will not again give himself over into the tyrant's dominion, nor will he again empty himself so as to take the form of a servant and become obedient unto death; lest once more, in the form of a servant — though placed there by will and not by necessity — he should nevertheless suffer the dominion of the tyrant and of death. Wherefore I marvel that certain people wish to assert, against this most evident judgment of Paul, that in the ages to come Christ must again suffer either the same things or things like them, so that those also may be able to be freed whom in the present life the medicine of his dispensation could not heal. For they say: "Can there be any age in the future in which neither anything good nor anything evil is done, but things stand benumbed and deep silences remain?" This, they assert, seems absurd. We shall grant, then, that something is done. "And where anything is done," they say, "it is necessary that something be done rightly and something also less rightly, and that in that very activity some make progress and become better, others worse. For freedom of choice will always remain to a rational nature; and just as it was possible even for him who, by reason of the splendor of his glory, was Lucifer, and who because of the light of knowledge rose in the morning, to be changed from his glory and to be made darkness because of the wickedness he took upon himself; and for him who was spotless from his birth, and dwelt with the cherubim, and moved about in the midst of the fiery stones, and was clothed with every ornament of the virtues, nor was there any tree of the virtues in the paradise of God that could be compared to him — and after these things iniquities were found in him, and he was cast down from heaven to earth: so it can happen that in whatever state a soul may be, and in whatever perfection of virtues, since virtue is changeable, it may incur a fall, so that just as it is inclined from vices to virtue, so also from virtues to vices. And if this is so, it will seem consistent to require a physician where there is sickness, since, according to the Savior's own word, 'those who are ill have need of a physician.'" Putting forward these things, then, and things like them, they judge that the same dispensations must be repeated by Christ in the ages to come. But to these things we shall reply briefly, as we are able. We do not deny that free choice always remains to a rational nature; but we assert that so great is the power of the cross of Christ, and of this death which he underwent at the end of the ages, that it suffices for the healing and remedy not only of the present and the future age, but even of the ages past, and not only for this human order of ours, but also for the heavenly powers and orders. For according to the judgment of Paul the Apostle himself, Christ made peace "through the blood of his cross" not only for "the things that are on earth," but also for "the things that are in the heavens." But what it is that in the ages to come will hold fast the freedom of choice, so that it does not fall again into sin, the Apostle teaches us in a brief word, saying: "Charity never falls." For charity is therefore said to be greater than both faith and hope, because it alone will be that through which it will no longer be possible to sin. For if the soul shall have ascended to that perfection, that it loves God with its whole heart and with its whole soul and with all its strength, and its neighbor as itself, where will there be room for sin? Accordingly, in the law too this is said to be the first commandment, and in the Gospels it is charity that is commanded above all else; and when to Peter the sum of things was handed over concerning the feeding of the sheep, and upon him as upon solid ground the Church was to be founded, the confession of no other virtue was required of him but of charity; and John, along with many things about charity, also says this, that "he who abides in charity abides in God." And therefore rightly will charity, which alone is greater than all things, hold every creature back from falling. Then God will be all in all.

To this degree of perfection had the apostle Paul ascended, and standing in it he said with confidence: "For who shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus? Tribulation? or distress? or persecution? or famine? or nakedness? or peril? or the sword?" And again: "For I am certain that neither life, nor death, nor things present, nor things to come, nor angels, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." From all which it is plainly shown that, if all these things which the Apostle has enumerated cannot separate us from the love of God, once a man has ascended to that summit of perfection, much more will freedom of choice not be able to separate us from His love. For although this too is a power, and abides in our nature, nevertheless so great is the force of charity that it draws all things to itself, and joins and claims to itself all the virtues — especially since God first gave us the grounds of charity, "who spared not His only Son, but delivered Him up for us all," and "with Him has given us all things." Whence even he who was Lucifer, and rose in heaven, or he who was without spot from the day of his birth and was set among the cherubim, was able to fall before he had been bound by the bonds of charity toward the benefits of the Son of God; but after the charity of God has begun to be poured forth in the hearts of all through the Holy Spirit, that will be certain which the Apostle declared, that "charity never falls away."

We shall not fear the second death if we have died willingly. Or it may mean: "You cannot be baptized a second time because Christ cannot be crucified for you a second time," as Paul writes to the Hebrews. He does not say that these people cannot repent, but he does not allow them to repeat their baptism.

For Christ too, having risen from the dead, lives always and will die no more.

Then when he says, knowing, he describes the condition of life of the risen Christ: first, he states it; second, he proves it, at for in that he died.

First, therefore, he says: we believe this, I say, because we know that Christ, rising again from the dead, dies now no more, but will live an everlasting life: I died, and behold I am alive forevermore (Rev 1:18). What is more, death shall no more have dominion over him, but it does over man: not only when his soul and body are separated when he dies, but also before he dies, when he is subject to sickness, hunger, thirst, and such things as lead to death. From all these things the life of the risen Christ is free. Consequently, he is not subject to the dominion of death; rather, he has dominion over death: I have the keys of death and Hades (Rev 1:18).

In taking upon Him manhood, He gave a testimony in the world, wherein also having suffered, He freed us by His blood from sin; and having vanquished hell, He was the first who rose from the dead and "death shall have no more dominion over Him."

In the Scriptures we learn that there are three kinds of death. The first is when we die to sin and live to God. Blessed is that death which, escaping from sin and devoted to God, separates us from what is mortal and consecrates us to him who is immortal. The second death is the departure from this life.… The third death is that of which it is said: "Let the dead bury their dead."

Paul shows that in the Savior's resurrection we have the assurance of eternity, to which we shall attain if we live a better life. For whoever lives to God by doing good is truly alive here and now and has eternal life.

Paul is saying that if Christ had died for sinners two or three times, there would be no danger in going back to our old sinful ways. But as he only died once, we who have been buried and risen again with him will not die to sin again. There will be no second baptism, no second death of Christ. Therefore we must be careful to stay alive.

Mindful of him, do ye by all means know that Jesus the Lord was truly born of Mary, being made of a woman; and was as truly crucified. For, says he, "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of the Lord Jesus." And He really suffered, and died, and rose again. For says [Paul], "If Christ should become passible, and should be the first to rise again from the dead." And again, "In that He died, He died unto sin once: but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God." Otherwise, what advantage would there be in [becoming subject to] bonds, if Christ has not died? what advantage in patience? what advantage in [enduring] stripes? And why such facts as the following: Peter was crucified; Paul and James were slain with the sword; John was banished to Patmos; Stephen was stoned to death by the Jews who killed the Lord? But, [in truth, ] none of these sufferings were in vain; for the Lord was really crucified by the ungodly.

What does "unto sin" mean? It means that He was not subject even to that one, but for our sin, that He might destroy it, and cut away its sinews and all its power, therefore He died. Do you see how he affrighteth them? For if He does not die again, then there is no second laver, then do thou keep from all inclinableness to sin. For all this he says to make a stand against the "let us do evil that good may come. Let us remain in sin that grace may abound." To take away this conception then, root and branch, it is, that he sets down all this. But in that "He liveth, He liveth unto God," he says,-that is, unchangeably, so that death hath no more any dominion over Him. For if it was not through any liability to it that He died the former death, save only for the sin of others, much less will He die again now that He hath done that sin away. And this he says in the Epistle to the Hebrews also, "But now once," he says, "in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin by the Sacrifice of Himself. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, and after that the judgment; so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation." And he both points out the power of the life that is according to God, and also the strength of sin. For with regard to the life according to God, he showeth that Christ shall die no more. With regard to sin, that if it brought about the death even of the Sinless, how can it do otherwise than be the ruin of those that are subject to it?

These things we have said, as best we could, concerning the questions raised in this place, so that it might shine forth more clearly how Christ died once to sin, and dies no more; and that in that He lives, He lives unto God. But to live unto God is to be understood in this way: that, when that is completed whereby, being placed in the form of God, He emptied Himself and took the form of a servant and was made obedient unto death, He abides again in the form of God, and equal to the Father.

According to the Apostle, man lives for God and dies for sin. When a man dies for sin, such a death is a blessed thing. By this death my Lord died. For "he who has died has died to sin."

Christ carried our sins and suffered for us so that in the future we might not sin. Christ now lives in the glory of his divinity.

Since Christ died once for all, no one who has died to Christ since then can live again to sin.

"For in that He died, He died unto sin once" means: Christ died for our sin, whereas He Himself was not subject to death. "And in that He lives, He lives unto God," that is, He lives by divine power; for He always lives in the power of God the Father.

Then when he says, for in that he died to sin, he proves his statement, namely, that the risen Christ will not die again. And he proves this in two ways. First he proves it with a reason based on the death he underwent, saying: for in that he died to sin, he died once. This must not be taken to mean that he died to sin he committed or contracted, because sin had no place whatever in him: who did no sin (1 Pet 2:22). But he is said to have died to sin in two ways: in one way, because he died to take away sin: for our sake he made him who knew no sin to be sin (2 Cor 5:21), i.e., a victim for sin. In another way, because he died to the likeness of sinful flesh, i.e., to a suffering and mortal body: God sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh (Rom 8:3). In both ways it can be concluded that Christ died once, from the fact that he died to sin. In regard to the first it is clear that he wiped out all sins through one death: by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified (Heb 10:14). Therefore, he does not need to die again for sin: for Christ also died for sins once for all (1 Pet 3:18). In regard to the second the same can be concluded. For if Christ endured death in order that the likeness of death disappear from him, his death ought to have been like that of others, who wear the flesh of sin and die but once. Hence, it is said: just as it is appointed for men to die once, so Christ also was offered once to bear the sins of many (Heb 9:27).

Second, he shows the same thing by considering the condition of life he obtained by rising. Hence he says: but in that he lives, he lives unto God, i.e., conformed to God. For it is said: he was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God (2 Cor 13:4). Now the effect is conformed to the cause. Hence, the life which the rising Christ acquired is deiform. Therefore, just as God's life is everlasting and without decay: who alone has immortality (1 Tim 6:16), so Christ's life is immortal.

Paul attributes death to sin, i.e., to our body, but life to God, to whose nature it belongs that he lives, so that we must die to our body in order to live in Christ Jesus. While assuming the body of our sin, Christ already lives wholly for God, since he has united the nature that he shared with us in a mutual participation in the divine immortality.

He well says, "reckon," because there is no setting that, which he is speaking of, before the eyes as yet. And what are we to reckon? one may ask. That we "are dead unto sin, but alive unto God. In Jesus Christ our Lord." For he that so liveth will lay hold of every virtue, as having Jesus Himself for his ally. For that is what, "in Christ," means, for if He raised them when dead, much more when alive will He be able to keep them so.

Whence also with good reason he adds in what follows: "So do you also reckon yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus our Lord" — namely, that by the imitation of Christ we may die to sin, being made strangers to it, and live unto God by joining ourselves to Him and becoming one spirit with Him. Nor was it without cause that he said, "Reckon yourselves to be dead unto sin"; which stands better in the Greek: "Consider (think) yourselves to be dead unto sin." For the matter of which he speaks subsists rather in thought and in reason, since a death of this kind is to be held not in actual fact but in thought. For he who thinks or reckons within himself that he is dead does not sin. For example: if the desire of a woman draws me; if the charm of silver, or of gold, or the covetousness of an estate assails me, and I set in my heart that I am dead with Christ, and think upon that death, straightway the concupiscence is extinguished and the sin is put to flight. Or if, inflamed with hatred or anger, I am stirred to the slaying of my enemy — if I reckon myself to be dead with Christ, and set the thoughts of death in my mind, without doubt the fury is quenched, the hatred ceases, the anger subsides, no place is given to sin; and in this way a man is found to die to sin and to live unto God. But this too, which he further added, "alive unto God in Christ Jesus," does not seem to me idle. For I think it is as though he had said: Alive unto God in wisdom, in peace, in justice, in sanctification — all of which Christ is. To live unto God in these things, then, is to live unto God in Christ Jesus. But if without justice, without peace, without sanctification and the other virtues no one lives unto God, it is certain that no one lives unto God except in Christ Jesus. Amen.

As members of Christ you should understand that having died with him once for all you ought now always to live for God in Christ. In him our life is hidden with God, and since we have been clothed with him we should follow his example.

And again he said, "Ye are dead unto the world, but alive unto God, in our Lord Jesus Christ." And again he said, "If ye died with Christ from the elements of the world, why, as if ye were living in the world, do ye receive the commandments?" Now a man arriveth at this rule of life after he hath stripped himself of his possessions, and beginneth to work good deeds in the members of his person, for so long as he hath riches, he justifieth himself by riches, and he emptieth not himself from the cares of riches which he serveth in himself. And if it be imagined that he will also do these things while he liveth in riches, he will not, for his service will be confounded, that is to say, he advanceth, and turneth backwards, and in addition thereunto, although this man may labour in the world of the body, yet it is impossible for him to stand in the purity of the soul, from which a man entereth into spiritual love, from which is born knowledge, the mirror of everything, and from which the understanding riseth step by step unto divine conversation.

Since Christ does not die a second time, neither do we die a second time through a second baptism (that is, for us there is no second baptism). Therefore, let us remain in the former, that is, in the death of sin, but in the resurrection of life according to God. And this we received in Christ Jesus, that is, with His help: for He Who raised us when we were still dead will all the more preserve us in life now that we have become alive.

Then when he says, so do you also, he reaches the intended conclusion that we are conformed to the life of the risen Christ both with respect to its death to sin, i.e., to the mortal life which has the likeness of sin, never to return to it, and with respect to living conformed to God. In regard to the first he says: so do you also reckon that you are dead to sin, i.e., as never to return to sin: let not the dead live (Isa 26:14). In regard to the second he says: but alive unto God, i.e., to the honor and in the likeness of God, that we never die through sin: the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God (Gal 2:20). So he adds, in Christ Jesus our Lord, i.e., through Jesus Christ, through whom we die to sin and live to God; or in Christ Jesus, i.e., as incorporated into Christ Jesus, that by his death we may die to sin and by his resurrection live to God: he made us alive together with Christ, by whose grace you have been saved through Christ (Eph 2:5).

The body is mortal because of the sin of Adam, but by faith in Christ we believe that it will be immortal. But in order for it to inherit the promise, Paul says that it must not listen to the voice of sin, so that sin may not reign in our mortal body. For it reigns as long as it is in control. But if it does not reign, the body will no longer appear to be mortal, because it dwells in the hope of eternal life. Paul did not say that the body is mortal because it will disintegrate but because of the pain of hell, so that the man who is sent to hell is said to be mortal because whoever hearkens to sin will not escape the second death, from which the Savior has delivered those who believe in him. Therefore, the mortal body refers to the entire human being because those who hearken to sin are said to be mortal. For Scripture says: "The soul which sins shall surely die," which means the whole human being. For nobody will be judged apart from his body.

The reign of sin is overthrown and destroyed, partly by such an amendment on the part of men that the flesh is made subject to the spirit and partly by the condemnation of those who are persevering in sin, in order that they might be so justly restrained that they cannot be troublesome to the righteous, who reign with Christ.

We must engage in a constant, daily struggle not to obey those desires which are forbidden or improper. For from this sort of fault it comes about that the eye is turned to where it ought not to look, and if this fault grows strong and prevails, even bodily adultery is carried out, which is committed in the heart as much more quickly as thought is quicker than action and has nothing to hinder or delay it.

Paul did not say: "Let sin not exist," but "Let it not reign." Sin is within you if you take delight in it; it reigns if you consent to it.

Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. I speak after the manner of men."

What sin is this? The sin committed before baptism, of course.

Here Paul shows that the reason we no longer sin is not that after baptism we are no longer made of flesh. Up to this point, we claim Christ's perfection by faith only and not by experience. For we have not yet become impassible or immortal.… Therefore Paul does not say: "Do not sin," but rather: "Let not sin reign in your mortal bodies."

If, therefore, flesh and blood are the things which procure for us life, it has not been declared of flesh and blood, in the literal meaning (proprie) of the terms, that they cannot inherit the kingdom of God; but [these words apply] to those carnal deeds already mentioned, which, perverting man to sin, deprive him of life. And for this reason he says, in the Epistle to the Romans: "Let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal body, to be under its control: neither yield ye your members instruments of unrighteousness unto sin; but yield yourselves to God, as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God." In these same members, therefore, in which we used to serve sin, and bring forth fruit unto death, does He wish us to [be obedient] unto righteousness, that we may bring forth fruit unto life.

In these same members, therefore, in which we used to serve sin, and bring forth fruit unto death, does He wish us to [be obedient] unto righteousness, that we may bring forth fruit unto life. Remember, therefore, my beloved friend, that thou hast been redeemed by the flesh of our Lord, re-established by His blood; and "holding the Head, from which the whole body of the Church, having been fitted together, takes increase" -that is, acknowledging the advent in the flesh of the Son of God, and [His] divinity, and looking forward with constancy to His human nature, availing thyself also of these proofs drawn from Scripture -thou dost easily overthrow, as I have pointed out, all those notions of the heretics which were concocted afterwards.

I am your servant. It seems to be a thing of humility, what is said. It is a thing of great dignity and merit, to be the servant of the Lord, and not the servant of sin. Because I do not have, he says, men as masters, because I do not have sin as master: for sin does not reign in my mortal body: therefore I am your servant. A great merit.

[Daniel 5:19] "'He slew whomever he would and smote to death whomever he wished to; those whom he wished he set on high, and brought low whomever he would.'" Thus he sets forth the example of the king's great-grandfather, in order to teach him the justice of God and make it clear that his great-grandson too was to suffer similar treatment because of his pride. Now if Nebuchadnezzar slew whomever he would and smote to death whomever he wished to; if he set on high those whom he would and brought low whomever he wished to, there is certainly no Divine providence or Scriptural injunction behind these honors and slayings, these acts of promotion and humiliation. But rather, such things ensue from the will of the men themselves who do the slaying and promoting to honor, and all the rest. If this be the case, the question arises as to how we are to understand the Scripture: "The heart of a king reposes in the hand of God; He will incline it in whatever direction He wishes" (Proverbs 21:1). Perhaps we might say that every saint is a king, for sin does not reign in his mortal body, and his heart therefore is kept safe, for he is in God's hand (Romans 6:1-23). And whatever has once come into the hand of God the Father, according to the Gospel, no man is able to take it away (John 10:28). And whoever is taken away, it is understood that he never was in God's hand at all.

He does not say, let not the flesh live or act, but, "let not sin reign," for He came not to destroy our nature, but to set our free choice aright. Then to show that it is not through any force or necessity that we are held down by iniquity, but willingly, he does not say, let it not tyrannize, a word that would imply a necessity, but let it not reign. For it is absurd for those who are being conducted to the kingdom of heaven to have sin empress over them, and for those who are called to reign with Christ to choose to be the captives of sin, as though one should hurl the diadem from off his head, and choose to be the slave of a frantic woman, who came begging, and was clothed in rags. Next since it was a heavy task to get the upper hand of sin, see how he shows it to be even easy, and how he allays the labor by saying, "in your mortal body." For this shows that the struggles were but for a time, and would soon bring themselves to a close. At the same time he reminds us of our former evil plight, and of the root of death, as it was from this that, contrary even to its beginning, it became mortal. Yet it is possible even for one with a mortal body not to sin. Do you see the abundancy of Christ's grace? For Adam, though as yet he had not a mortal body, fell. But thou, who hast received one even subject to death, canst be crowned. How then, is it that "sin reigns?" he says. It is not from any power of its own, but from thy listlessness. Wherefore after saying, "let it not reign," he also points out the mode of this reigning, by going on to say "that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof." For it is not honor to concede to it (i.e. to the body) all things at will, nay, it is slavery in the extreme, and the height of dishonor; for when it doth what it listeth, then is it bereft of all liberties; but when it is put under restraints, then it best keeps its own proper rank.

"Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, so that you should obey its desires; neither present your members as weapons of iniquity unto sin: but present yourselves to God, as those living from among the dead; and your members as weapons of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for you are not under the law, but under grace." In the passages above he says: "As sin reigned in death." But now he did not say: Let not sin therefore reign in death; rather he says: "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, so that you should obey its desires" — teaching by this that sin has a certain seat and kingdom in the body. This is what he said elsewhere too: "The prudence of the flesh is an enemy to God"; and again: "The prudence of the flesh is death." But the Apostle also declares that all sins are works of the flesh, which he says are fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil concupiscence, shamelessness, idolatry, sorceries, enmities, quarrels, jealousy, rage, contentions, dissensions, heresies, envy, drunkennesses, carousings, and things like these. But if you ask how heresies too are numbered among the works of the flesh, you will find that they proceed from the sense of the flesh. For thus the Apostle says concerning a certain man: "Vainly," he says, "puffed up by the sense of his own flesh, and not holding the head." Now these things we have said so that the understanding might become clearer, how sin reigns in the body. For all those things which we enumerated above as works of the flesh are like a certain armed host soldiering under this king, sin, and obeying its law, which is inscribed in the members of the flesh. For it is certain that, from the fact that the flesh renders obedience to the desires of sin, "the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and these are opposed to one another." Yet notice this: that in showing that it is placed within our own power that sin should not reign in our mortal body, the Apostle gave a precept, saying: "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, so that you should obey its desires." For unless it were in our power that sin should not reign in us, he certainly would not have given a precept. How, then, is it possible that sin should not reign in our flesh? If we do what the same Apostle says: "Mortify your members which are upon the earth," and if we always carry about "the death of Christ in our body." For it is certain that, where the death of Christ is carried about, sin cannot reign. For so great is the power of the cross of Christ that, if it be set before the eyes and faithfully retained in the mind, so that the eye of the mind gazes intently upon the very death of Christ, no concupiscence, no lust, no rage, no envy can prevail; but at once, at its presence, that whole army of sin and of the flesh which we enumerated above is put to flight. Indeed sin itself does not even subsist, seeing that it has no substance anywhere except in deed and act. There is therefore in us both a concupiscence of sin, which has its kingdom in the flesh, and a concupiscence of the spirit, which has its kingdom in the mind, according to what we said above, that "the flesh lusts against the spirit, but the spirit against the flesh." When, therefore, we desire what is not lawful, or what is not fitting, or what is not expedient, it is the concupiscence of the flesh. But when our soul desires and faints when it may see the salvation of God, that is the concupiscence of the spirit. From which it appears that the soul is in a certain way midway between the flesh and the spirit; and if indeed it joins itself to the flesh so as to obey the desires of sin, it becomes one body with it; but if it joins itself to God, it becomes one spirit with him, according to what has been said: "For he who joins himself to a harlot is one body; but he who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit." Nor should you wonder if he calls the flesh a harlot, since it lies subject to all those vices and sins which we enumerated above, as to the basest lovers. But I inquire why he added, "in your mortal body," when surely it would have sufficed to say: "Let not sin therefore reign in your body." Why is "mortal" also added, as though anyone doubted that the body is mortal? But it seems to me that he added even this not without cause. For by it he gave warning how sin can fail to reign in the body, according to what he himself had also said elsewhere: "The body indeed is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness." If therefore we know that our body can be mortified, and be dead to sin, it can come about that sin should not reign in it. For according to this, that it is dead, it is said to be justified from sin. For a dead man neither lusts nor grows angry, nor rages, nor plunders what belongs to another. If therefore we restrain the body from all these concupiscences, the body is said to be dead to sin. And this is what, in the present passage, that addition of the Apostle seems to bring to mind when he says, "in your mortal body." Another perhaps will say that it is by way of distinction from that other body which is immortal that he named this body, in which we now are, mortal. But what the immortal body is, the same Apostle teaches in other places, where he says: "For it is necessary that this corruptible put on incorruption, and this mortal put on immortality"; and there is no doubt that, once mortality is taken away, this very thing which is now mortal is made an immortal body.

You should live in your mortal body as if you were immortal. Paul also explains how sin reigns in the body—by obedience and consent.

A reign is different from a tyranny in that a tyrant rules without the consent of his subjects, whereas a reign applies in those cases where the subjects have assented to it. Therefore Paul is urging his hearers not to assent any longer to the reign of sin, for the Lord destroyed sin's reign when he took on human flesh.

Wishing to show that we are held in the power of vices not by force and compulsion, but by our own free will, he did not say "let it not tyrannize," but says, "let it not reign," for a kingdom is the lot of those who have will. And by the expression "in your mortal body," he first showed that neither is what is pleasant for the body lasting (for the body is subject to death), so that one ought not to serve the body in its pleasures, nor is what is difficult permanent, so that one ought not to flee from what is sorrowful and from struggles against pleasures; and second, he reminds us that mortality is a consequence of sin, and urges us not to be subservient any longer to sin, as that which causes death. In what way then does sin reign? If we obey it in its bodily "lusts," so that it is not the body that causes harm by its nature, but obedience to sin. Note the grace of Christ: Adam sinned even though he had a body that was not mortal, yet we conquer sin in a mortal body.

After showing that we ought not remain in sin and that we have the faculty for this, the Apostle concludes with a moral exhortation. And concerning this he does three things: first, he proposes an admonition; second, he assigns a reason, at for sin shall not; third, he raises and solves a question, at what then? Shall we sin. In regard to the first he does two things: first, he proposes the admonition; second, he clarifies it, at so as to obey.

First, therefore, he says: we have said that our old self was crucified once, so that the body of sin may be destroyed. This means that the power of sin has been so weakened that it cannot rule us. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body any longer. He does not say: let not sin be in your mortal body, because as long as our body is mortal, i.e., bound to the necessity of death, it is not possible for sin not to be in our body, i.e., the inclination to sin. But since we have been freed from the kingdom of sin by God, we must struggle in order that sin not recover its dominion now lost in our body. And this is what he says: let not sin reign in your mortal body. This is something about which one must be on his guard, as long as we wear the mortal body: the corruptible body is a load upon the soul (Wis 9:15).

Paul shows that the devil fights against us by using our members. For the opportunity is given to him by our sins, so that when God abandons us he acquires the power to deceive and destroy us. Therefore we must protect our members from every work of iniquity so that our enemy may be left defenseless and subdued. Paul did not say: "Present your bodies," but "Present your members," for a person goes wrong when his members and not his whole body lead him wherever sin dictates."Death" in this context means ignorance and unbelief, combined with an evil life, because "life" is to know God through Christ. Just as nobody acquires life without a parent, everyone has obtained life through Christ. Therefore whoever does not recognize that God is the Father of all through Christ is said not to have life, i.e., what he has here on earth does not count as life. For such a person denies himself as long as he thinks he can live without God as his Father. Therefore ignorance and a wicked life are death. For wickedness obtains death, not the death which is common to us all but the death of hell, as I mentioned above. Likewise, knowledge of God the Father and holy behavior are life, not that life which is subject to death but the life of the world to come which is called eternal. For this reason Paul says that you should present yourselves to God, for by knowing him you will go on to salvation. Having turned away from an evil life you will be like people who have risen from the dead. Such great modesty ought to govern our conduct that our behavior will lead to the righteousness of God, not to earthly righteousness. For the righteousness of this world is without faith in Christ, and without that it is death, not life. Let us then yield our members to him so that he can defend us. For when we yield our members to him through good works, we make ourselves worthy to be aided by God's righteousness, because that righteousness is not given to those who are unworthy to receive it. Where God's righteousness is, there the Holy Spirit dwells and helps our infirmity. Just as we yield our members to sin when we act wrongly, so we yield them to righteousness when we behave rightly, protecting them from all wickedness.

This injunction would be successfully carried out, I believe, if we were willing always to keep the same disposition of mind as we had at the time of danger. For surely we realized to some degree the vanity of life, as well as the unreliability and instability of human affairs, which change so easily. And in all likelihood we felt contrition for our past faults and promised that for the future, if we were saved we would serve God with watchful exactitude.

The body then is indifferent between vice and virtue, as also instruments (or arms) are. But either effect is wrought by him that useth it. As if a soldier fighting in his country's behalf, and a robber who was arming against the inhabitants, had the same weapons for defence. For the fault is not laid to the suit of armor, but to those that use it to an ill end. And this one may say of the flesh too which becomes this or that owing to the mind's decision, not owing to its own nature. For if it be curious after the beauty of another, the eye becomes an instrument of iniquity, not through any agency of its own (for what is of the eye, is but seeing, not seeing amiss), but through the fault of the thought which commands it. But if you bridle it, it becomes an instrument of righteousness. Thus with the tongue, thus with the hands, thus with all the other members. And he well calls sin unrighteousness. For by sinning a man deals unrighteously either by himself or by his neighbor, or rather by himself more than by his neighbor. Having then led us away from wickedness, he leads us to virtue, in these words: "But yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead." See how by his bare words he exhorts them, on that side naming "sin" and on this "God." For by showing what a difference there is between the rulers, he casts out of all excuse the soldier that leaveth God, and desireth to serve under the dominion of sin. But it is not only in this way, but also by the sequel, that he establishes this; by saying, "as alive from the dead." For by these he shows the wretchedness of the other, and the greatness of God's gift. For consider, he says, what you were, and what you have been made. What then were ye? Dead, and ruined by a destruction which could not from any quarter be repaired. For neither was there any one who had the power to assist you. And what have ye been made out of those dead ones? Alive with immortal life. And by whom? By the all-powerful God. Ye ought therefore to marshal yourselves under Him with as much cheerful readiness, as men would who had been made alive from being dead. "And your members as instruments of righteousness." Hence, the body is not evil, since it may be made an arm of righteousness. But by calling it an arm, he makes it clear that there is a hard warfare at hand for us. And for this reason we need strong armor, and also a noble spirit, and one acquainted too with the ways of this warfare; and above all we need a commander. The Commander however is standing by, ever ready to help us, and abiding unconquerable, and has furnished us with strong arms likewise. Farther, we have need of a purpose of mind to handle them as should be, so that we may both obey our Commander, and take the field for our country.

After these things there follows: "Neither present your members as weapons of iniquity unto sin; but present yourselves to God as those living from among the dead, and your members rather as weapons of righteousness unto God." Observe point by point the wisdom of Paul, that he uses necessary distinctions. Where he says that weapons must not be furnished to sin or to iniquity, he sets down not us, but our members; but where he urges that we present ourselves to God, he wills that not our members, but we ourselves first be presented to God — that is, our soul, or our purpose — so that when we have first presented our very selves to God and have cleaved to him, then at last we may make our members also weapons of righteousness unto God. For just as those hands are called holy which have ministered to holy works, as the Apostle says: "Lifting up pure hands without wrath and disputing"; and again, those hands are called full of blood which have ministered to the shedding of blood: so also in the present passage the members which serve sin and iniquity are called weapons of iniquity; and again, if we mortify the concupiscence of sin in our mortal body, and labor in the work of righteousness, and minister to righteousness with all our members, we become as those living from among the dead — dead, that is, to sin and living to righteousness; and consequently our members too become weapons of righteousness unto God. And he has well kept to the metaphor proposed above, so that, because he had said that sin reigns, he should name the members weapons of sin, and again that our members should bear weapons of righteousness for God as king.

Every part of the body can become a weapon of wickedness which will defeat righteousness if it turns its purpose to bad use. At the same time, note that it is by freedom of choice that a man offers his members to the side of his choice.

By telling us to yield our members to God as instruments of righteousness, Paul teaches that the body is not evil but the creation of a good God. Therefore if it is properly and correctly controlled by the soul it can serve God.

Where are the Manicheans who say that the body is sinful by nature? The body is an instrument, and an instrument is a means for both virtue and vice. Thus a sword serves the warrior as a weapon for the defense of citizens, while for a robber it is a weapon against citizens. "Do not present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness." For whoever sins acts unjustly often toward his neighbor, and always toward himself. "But present yourselves to God," considering what a difference there is between God and sin, and to whom it is better to submit: to sin, which has brought death, or to God, Who has given life. Having said that the members are instruments of unrighteousness, he showed, on the one hand, that the body, as stated above, is not something evil, since it can be an instrument of righteousness, and on the other hand, that a battle has commenced and that we need to be under the command of God and take up arms in defense of our soul.

Then when he says, so as to obey, he clarifies this admonition. In regard to this it should be noted that sin reigns in man in two ways: in one way, through internal consent of the mind. To remove this he says, so as to obey the lusts thereof. For it is by obeying the passions of sin with our minds that sin reigns in us: go not after your lusts (Sir 18:30). In a second way sin reigns in us through the performance of the act. To exclude this, he adds, neither yield your members unto sin, i.e., to the inclination to sin, as instruments of iniquity, i.e., as instruments for committing sin. For when man commits sin through his members, he yields to sin. In this way he seems to fight to restore sin's dominion, which grows in us through the habit of sinning: they went down to hell with their weapons (Exod 32:27).

Then when he says, but yield yourselves to God, he urges them to the opposite, namely, to yield themselves to God. And first with regard to the internal faculties when he says, but yield yourselves to God by submitting your mind to God: and now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you but that you fear the Lord your God and walk in his ways (Deut 10:12). And you ought to do this as those that are alive from the dead, i.e., as led from the death of sin to the life of grace. Hence it is fitting, since he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised (2 Cor 3:15). Second, with respect to outward actions; hence he says, yield your members . . . unto God, i.e., to his service, as instruments of justice with which to fight against God's enemies: put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil (Eph 6:11).

If we walk according to the commandments which he gives, Paul says that sin will not rule over us, for it rules over those who sin. For if we do not walk as he commands we are under the law. But if we do not sin we are not under the law but under grace. If, however, we sin, we fall back under the law, and sin starts to rule over us once more, for every sinner is a slave to sin. It is necessary for a person to be under the law as long as he does not receive forgiveness, for by the law's authority sin makes the sinner guilty. Thus the person to whom forgiveness is given and who keeps it by not sinning anymore will neither be ruled by sin nor be under the law. For the authority of the law no longer applies to him; he has been delivered from sin. Those whom the law holds guilty have been turned over to it by sin. Therefore the person who has departed from sin cannot be under the law.

This refers to the third state of man, when in his mind he serves the law of God even though his flesh still serves the law of sin. For he does not obey the desire to sin, even though lusts will continue to court him and urge him to surrender until the body is raised to new life and death is swallowed up in victory. Because we do not give in to evil desires we are under grace, and sin does not reign in our mortal bodies. But the man who is controlled by sin even if he wants to resist it is still under the law and not yet under grace.

Grace causes sin not to have power over you. Therefore do not trust in yourself, lest sin thereby have much more power over you.

It is not that the law is evil but that it makes those under it guilty by giving commands without providing help to fulfill them. In fact, grace helps one to become a doer of the law, for without such grace one living under the law will be no more than a hearer of the law.

Those who hold that for them there is no difference between right and wrong force a few passages of Scripture and think they favour their own immoral opinions. In particular they quote the saying: "Sin shall not have dominion over you; for you are not under the law but under grace," and others of this sort, which there is no reason to add, for I am not proposing to fit out a pirate ship. Let us then briefly put a stop to their argument. The noble apostle himself refutes the charge against him implied in their false exegesis by the words with which he continues after the saying just quoted: "What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? God forbid." In this inspired and prophetic way he at once destroys the device of these licentious sophists.

Mistake is a sin contrary to calculation; and voluntary sin is crime; and crime is voluntary wickedness. Sin, then, is on my part voluntary. Wherefore says the apostle, "Sin shall not have dominion over you; for ye are not under the law, but under grace." Addressing those who have believed, he says, "For by His stripes we were healed."

If then sin hath no more dominion over us, why does he lay so great a charge upon them as he does in the words, "Let not sin reign in your mortal body," and, "yield not ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin?" What does that here said mean then? He is sowing a kind of seed in this statement, which he means to develop afterwards, and to cultivate in a powerful argument. What then is this statement? It is this; that our body, before Christ's coming, was an easy prey to the assaults of sin. For after death a great swarm of passions entered also. And for this cause it was not lightsome for running the race of virtue. For there was no Spirit present to assist, nor any baptism of power to mortify. But as some horse that answereth not the rein, it ran indeed, but made frequent slips, the Law meanwhile announcing what was to be done and what not, yet not conveying into those in the race anything over and above exhortation by means of words. But when Christ had come, the effort became afterwards more easy, and therefore we had a more distant goal set us, in that the assistance we had given us was greater. Wherefore also Christ saith, "Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the Kingdom of Heaven." But this he says more clearly in the sequel. But at present he alludes here briefly to it, to show that unless we stoop down very low to it, sin will not get the better of us. For it is not the Law only that exhorteth us, but grace too which also remitted our former sins, and secures us against future ones. For it promised them crowns after toils, but this (i.e. grace) crowned them first, and than led them to the contest. Now it seems to me that he is not signifying here the whole life of a believer, but instituting a comparison between the Baptism and the Law. And this he says in another passage also "The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life." For the Law convinceth of transgression, but grace undoes transgression. As then the former by convincing establisheth sin so the latter by forgiving suffereth us not to be under sin. And so thou art in two ways set free from this thraldom; both in thy not being under the Law, and in thy enjoying grace.

There follows after these things: "For sin shall not have dominion over you. For you are not under the law, but under grace." Here too observe the marvelous caution in the Apostle's language. When he speaks of us, he says: "Sin shall not have dominion over you"; when he was speaking of the Savior, he did not say: Sin shall not have dominion (for neither was it fitting that this be said of him), but he says: "Death shall no more have dominion over him." For in him there was room for death, none for sin. But on the contrary, concerning us it was not fitting to say: Death shall not have dominion over you — for this we cannot avoid — but rather, "Sin shall not have dominion over you"; which without doubt he knew we could avoid, according to what we said above, if we mortify the concupiscences of the flesh, in which sin was able to have dominion. For this reason he adds: "For you are not under the law, but under grace"; and he plainly shows from these words that we are not under that law which he says, being placed in the members, fights against the law of the mind, since he who mortifies his members is certainly not under the law of the members, but under the grace of God. Concerning this law he says elsewhere too that "the strength of sin is the law." But if anyone wishes to take these things of the law of Moses, he will without doubt say that we are not under the law of the letter which kills, but under the law of the spirit which gives life, which here he has named grace.

Sin will not overcome you, for you are not children but adults. It is like the teacher who says to a student: "Avoid stylistic errors; you are no longer learning from a primary school teacher but from a professor." Paul offered teaching and example as a way to overcome sin by grace.

So faith, illumined by patience, when it was becoming propagated among the nations through" Abraham's seed, which is Christ," and was superinducing grace over the law, made patience her pre-eminent coadjutrix for amplifying and fulfilling the law, because that alone had been lacking unto the doctrine of righteousness.

Having shown that they should avoid sinning for the sake of future benefits, Paul goes on to add that they should live as though they were incapable of sinning at all. For if the time was coming when they would be transformed and act as sinless people, then here and now they ought to cleanse their minds of any thought of sin and earnestly try to do what is good.

In other words, nature is no longer struggling on its own but has the Holy Spirit to help it.

Before the coming of Christ, he says, your body was easily conquered by sin. At that time there was neither the assisting Spirit nor baptism capable of putting sin to death. Therefore the law too, by prescribing what to do, made no progress. But after the coming of Christ the struggle became easier, which is why the labors required of us, as those who have received greater help, are harder. So then, sin will not have dominion over us if we do not yield to it too much. Now it is not the law, which only gives commandments but renders not the slightest help, but grace, which forgives former sins and strengthens for the future.

Then when he says, for sin shall not, he assigns the reason for this admonition. For someone might excuse himself, alleging that sin's dominion is an obstacle to obeying the admonition. But the Apostle excludes this, saying, for sin shall not have dominion over you, i.e., if you begin to resist sin and yield yourself to God: draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Resist the devil and he will flee from you (Jas 4:8). As if to say: you can observe my admonition, because you do not find sin dominating and holding you. For we have been freed by Christ, as John says: if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed (John 8:36).

Then he clarifies what he had said, saying, for you are not under the law, but under grace. Here it should be noted that he is not speaking of the law merely with respect to its ceremonial precepts, but even with respect to moral matters. For one is said to be under the law in two ways. In one way, as voluntarily subject to the observance of the law. Even Christ was under the law in this way according to Galatians: born under the law (Gal 4:4), namely, because he observed the law, not only the moral but also the ceremonial precepts. But the faithful of Christ are under the law in this way, with respect to the moral precepts but not the ceremonial. In another way, one is said to be under the law as though compelled by the law. In this way, one is under the law when he does not obey it voluntarily from love but is compelled by fear. But such a one lacks grace which, if it were present, would incline the will to observe the law and fulfill its moral precepts from a motive of love. Therefore, as long as one is under the law in such a way that he does not fulfill it voluntarily, sin has dominion over him. As a result, such a man's will is inclined to choose what is contrary to the law. But through grace such dominion is removed; consequently, a man observes the law not as existing under the law but as free: we are not children of the slave but of the free woman, by the freedom with which Christ has set us free (Gal 4:31).

This grace, making men freely obey the law, was not conferred by the sacraments of the old law, but Christ's sacraments conferred it. Consequently, those who submitted themselves to the ceremonies of the law were not, so far as the power of those sacraments was concerned, under grace but under the law, unless they happened to obtain grace through faith. But one who submits to Christ's sacraments obtains grace from his power, so as not to be under the law but under grace, unless they enslaved themselves to sin through their own fault.

Although it was right for the law to be given—for it was given in order to show that those who sinned against it were guilty before God and in order to dissuade people from continuing to sin—yet because of the weakness of its infirmity the human race was unable to restrain itself from sin and had become subject to the death of hell. God was moved by the righteousness of his mercy, by which he always comes to the aid of the human race, and through Christ he provided a way by which he could reward those who were without hope. By forgiving their sins he released them from the law which had held them subject. Restored and made whole again by the help of God, they could reject the sins by which they had previously been held down. Therefore we did not sin in rejecting the law but rather we followed the providence of God himself through Christ.

The noble apostle himself refutes the charge against him implied in their false exegesis by the words with which he continues after the saying just quoted: "What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? God forbid." In this inspired and prophetic way he at once destroys the device of these licentious sophists.

So he first adopted a form of adjuration, because it was an absurd thing he had named. And then he makes his discourse pass on to exhortation, and shows the great facility of the struggle.

"What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid." This seems similar to that saying which we expounded above: "What then shall we say? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid"; and therefore let one and the same explanation suffice for both places. This alone is what seems to constitute a difference, that in the earlier passage, where he says, "What then? Shall we continue in sin?" it seems to be said to those who have not yet departed from sin, lest they remain in that state in which they still seemed to be; but here the question seems to be put as though by those who have already departed from sin: and there, as it were, that grace, which did not yet exist, might abound; but here he speaks as though grace were already present, "because we are not under the law, but under grace."

If you sin, you will not be under grace.

I think that Paul is saying this to the Jews because it is the nature of the law to tell us what we should and should not do. If we find ourselves outside the law, there is nothing to stop us from doing what we like, but if there is some way of determining what should and should not be done, then we are back under the law again, and what is said here will easily apply to us. Paul has expressed himself in this seemingly contradictory way because he is saying that since we are free of sin we are no longer under the law. He does not mean that the outpouring of grace has given us license to sin.

The apostle always proposes such objections, which is why he both raises and resolves them, as he does with the present objection, answering it: "God forbid." Then he proves that it is not difficult for us not to sin. Consider, he urges, in your mind which is better: to be slaves of sin, having surrendered to it of your own will (this is what "you yield" means), and to receive as a reward death, that is, eternal punishment (for the sin of Adam produced bodily and temporal death, but sin committed now subjects a person to eternal death, that is, eternal punishment), or to obey God and receive as a reward righteousness and the blessings that flow from it?

Then when he says, what then, he raises a question against what he has said. And concerning this he does three things: first, he raises the question; second, he answers it, at God forbid! Know you not; third, he shows how unfitting it would be to misinterpret his statement, at but thanks be to God.

In regard to the first it should be noted that his statement could be falsely interpreted, namely, that Christ's faithful are not under the law with respect to being obliged to obey its moral precepts. For it would follow that Christ's faithful could lawfully commit sin and act against the moral precepts. Therefore, in this context he raises the question: what then? Shall we sin, i.e., shall we act against the moral precepts, because, as has been said, we are not under the law, but under grace? This interpretation the Apostle rejects in Galatians: for you were called to freedom, brethren, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh (Gal 5:13).

Paul warns us not to say one thing and do another, so that when we are said to be servants of God we should be found by our actions to be servants of the devil. He proclaims that we are servants of the one whose will we do and that it is not fair to confess God as Lord but do the works of the devil. For God himself notices this and attacks it: "This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me," and the Lord says in the Gospel: "No man can serve two masters," and in the law it is written: "God is not mocked."

I do not, he would say, mention hell as yet, nor that great punishment, but the shame it is in this world, when ye become slaves, and slaves of your own accord too, and sin's slaves, and when the wages are such as a second death. For if before baptism, it wrought death of the body, and the wound required so great attendance, that the Lord of all came down to die, and so put a stop to the evil; if after so great a gift, and so great liberty, it seize thee again, while thou bendest down under it willingly, what is there that it may not do? Do not then run into such a pit, or willingly give thyself up. For in the case of wars, soldiers are often given up even against their will. But in this case, unless thou desertest of thyself, there is no one who will get the better of thee. Having then tried to shame them by a sense of duty, he alarms them also by the rewards, and lays before them the wages of both; righteousness, and death, and that a death not like the former, but far worse. For if Christ is to die no more, who is to do away with death? No one! We must then be punished, and have vengeance taken upon us forever. For a death preceptible to the senses is not still to come in this case, as in the former, which gives the body rest, and separates it from the soul. "For the last enemy, death, is destroyed," whence the punishment will be deathless. But not to them that obey, for righteousness, and the blessings springing from it, will be their rewards.

"Do you not know that to whomever you present yourselves as servants to obey, you are the servants of him whom you obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto justice? But thanks be to God, that you were the servants of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine into which you have been delivered. And being freed from sin, you have been made the servants of justice." Perhaps the expression seems less than complete when he says, "You are the servants of him whom you have obeyed, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto justice"; whereas reason would have required it to be said: You are the servants of him whom you have obeyed, whether of sin, or of justice through obedience. But in one who of his own accord professes himself unskilled in speech, I think it superfluous to look for artistry in the composition of words, since the sense is held to be evident. This, then, is what the Apostle teaches in this place: that each one has it in his own hand and in the power of his choice, to be either the servant of sin or of justice. For to whichever side he shall incline his obedience, and to whichever side he shall be willing to submit, that side claims him for itself as its servant. In this, as I have said, he shows without any hesitation that freedom of choice lies within us. For it is in us to render our obedience either to justice or to sin. But "no one can serve two masters at once," sin and justice. "For either he will hate the one," namely sin, "and love the other," that is, justice; "or he will bear with the one," namely sin only, "and despise the other," that is, justice. Similar, therefore, is also what the Apostle said: "You are the servants of him whom you have obeyed, whether of sin or of justice." But also what is said, "Everyone who commits sin is the servant of sin," looks to this same point, although he did not add: And everyone who does justice is the servant of justice. Which perhaps another might think was left out for this reason, that it ought to be understood as though from what follows. To me, however, it seems that it was deliberately not added. For it would not have been fitting to say that everyone who does justice is the servant of justice. For God himself also does justice, and yet cannot on that account be called the servant of justice, but the Lord of justice. Therefore it is not the case that everyone who does justice is the servant of justice in the same way that everyone who commits sin is the servant of sin. For the devil himself also is without doubt the servant of sin, inasmuch as he departed from the service of justice and rebelled in the sight of the almighty Lord, on account of which he was also called an apostate. It is established, therefore, from these words in which Paul says, "That to whomever you present yourselves as servants to obey, you are the servants of him whom you obey, whether of sin or of justice," that of our own accord we present ourselves, with none compelling us, to serve either sin or justice through our own obedience; and therefore we ought always to remember these things, lest we bring forward empty complaints in excuse of sin — that the devil made us sin, or the necessity of nature, or the condition of fate, or the course of the stars. But hear Paul's sentence, by which he speaks openly: "To whomever you present yourselves as servants to obey, you are the servants of him whom you have obeyed, whether of sin, or of justice."

Righteousness and sin are mutually incompatible. As the Lord himself said in the holy Gospel: "No man can serve two masters."

Then he proves that it is not difficult for us not to sin. Consider, he urges, in your mind which is better: to be slaves of sin, having surrendered to it of your own will (this is what "you yield" means), and to receive as a reward death, that is, eternal punishment (for the sin of Adam produced bodily and temporal death, but sin committed now subjects a person to eternal death, that is, eternal punishment), or to obey God and receive as a reward righteousness and the blessings that flow from it?

In the same fashion he answers here, God forbid that we should sin, because we have been set free from the law; because if we were to sin, we would once more be reduced to the slavery of sin. Hence, he continues, know you not that to whom you yield yourselves of your own will as servants to obey voluntarily, his servants you are whom you obey. For obedience is a debt which slaves owe to their masters: slaves, be obedient to your earthly masters (Eph 6:5). Hence, when someone obeys another, he admits that he is his slave by obeying. But different masters are obeyed for different remunerations. For the one who obeys sin is led to death through the slavery of sin. And this is what he says: whether it be of sin, i.e., you are its slaves by obeying it, unto death, i.e., to the eternal damnation of the one who falls. Concerning this death it is said: he who conquers shall not be hurt by the second death (Rev 2:11). But the one who obeys God is made a slave of this obedience, because through the habit of obeying the mind is inclined more and more to obeying and as a result achieves holiness. Therefore, he says: or of obedience, namely, of the divine precepts, unto justice: the doers of the law shall be justified (Rom 2:13). Sin and obedience are fittingly presented as opposites, because, as Ambrose says, sin is a transgression of the divine law and a disobedience against the heavenly commands.

As it is right to obey Christ, for he is himself righteousness and what he commands is righteous, Paul therefore says that we have become servants of righteousness "from the heart," not from the law. We do this voluntarily and not out of fear, so that our confession of faith might find expression in the judgment of our mind. For by nature we have been led to faith, not by the law, in which standard of teaching we have been made for the rule of God, who created nature. For by nature we know by whom and through whom and in whom we were created. Therefore the standard of teaching is that into which our Creator has led us naturally. This is what he said above: "They are a law unto themselves," when their own natures see what they believe, that what the law and the Prophets predicted to the Jews concerning Christ is what the Gentiles have confessed from the heart. For this reason Paul gives thanks to the Lord, because when we were still servants of sin we obeyed from the heart, believing in Christ, so that we might serve God not according to the law of Moses but according to the law of nature.

After shaming them by the slavery, after alarming them by the rewards, and so exhorting them, he again rights them by calling the benefits to mind. For by these he shows that they were great evils from which they were freed, and that not by any labors of their own, and that things henceforth would be more manageable. Just as any one who has rescued a captive from a cruel tyrant, and advises him not to run away back to him, reminds him of his grievous thraldom; so does Paul set the evils passed away most emphatically before us, by giving thanks to God. For it was no human power that could set us free from all those evils, but, "thanks be to God," who was willing and able to do such great things. And he well says, "Ye have obeyed from the heart." Ye were neither forced nor pressed, but ye came over of your own accord, with willing mind. Now this is like one that praises and rebukes at once. For after having willingly come, and not having had any necessity to undergo, what allowance can you claim, or what excuse can you make, if you run away back to your former estate? Next that you may learn that it came not of your own willing temper only, but the whole of it of God's grace also, after saying, "Ye have obeyed from the heart," he adds, "that form of doctrine which was delivered you." For the obedience from the heart shows the free will. But the being delivered, hints the assistance from God. But what is the form of doctrine? It is living aright, and in conformity with the best conversation.

After these things he says: "Thanks be to God, that you were the servants of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine into which you have been delivered." He seems to say this to those about whose life and progress, and concerning whom, he had already said above: "I give thanks to God through Jesus Christ for all these, because your faith is proclaimed in the whole world." Then next he also shows this, that all men first serve sin. For thus it is written: That "there is not a just man upon the earth who does good and does not sin." For first it is necessary that in every man that be fulfilled which is written: "But when the commandment came, sin revived." But what follows is said to few, and to those who are already being amended, namely what he says: "But thanks be to God, that you were the servants of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine into which you have been delivered." We were all, therefore, the servants of sin; but when the form of doctrine was delivered to us, and we chose to obey it not in any casual way, nor with words alone, but from the heart, from the soul, with our whole devotion, we are freed from the servitude of sin, and are made the servants of justice. Whence I fear that perhaps there are rather many of us who seem to have received the form of the doctrine of justice, and in words indeed or in profession seem to obey justice, but in heart obey sin, the vices of the flesh still holding dominion in us. And therefore before all things we stand in need of that mortification of the members concerning which he taught above. But as to what he said, "The form of doctrine, into which you have been delivered," I think we must inquire how each one is delivered. For we find that those who "do not approve of having God in their knowledge," God "delivers, according to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness, so that they dishonor their own bodies among themselves"; and others who "exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God," he delivers "unto passions of dishonor," concerning which passages we have spoken in their proper places as we were able. These too, therefore, who present themselves as servants of justice through obedience, God has delivered that they may be instructed and imbued according to the form of the doctrine of justice. But this also moves me, that he did not say, "You have obeyed from the heart" the doctrine "into which you have been delivered," but he put "the form of doctrine." Nor do I think that the Apostle held doctrine and the form of doctrine to be one and the same thing; but it seems to me that he knew the form of doctrine to be something less than the doctrine itself; and that now indeed in the present life, while we are in this body, and "this earthly dwelling weighs down the mind that ponders many things," we have the form of doctrine, not the doctrine itself, as the same Apostle says elsewhere: "But now we see through a mirror in an enigma"; while the doctrine itself is that of which he says: "But then we shall see face to face." Whence also in the present life I think that we can hold the form and shadow of the virtues; but the virtues themselves, then, when those things which are perfect shall have come. And therefore the just man now, as it seems to me, lives rather in the shadow of the virtues than in the virtues themselves. And on this account perhaps Jeremiah says in the Lamentations: "The Spirit of our countenance, Christ the Lord, of whom we said: In his shadow we shall live among the nations." But if Christ is justice, and wisdom, and truth, and we say, "in his shadow we shall live among the nations," then we live in the shadow of justice, and in the shadow of wisdom, and in the shadow of truth, even if we seem to be just, and wise, and lovers of truth. Therefore it is said on this account: "If anyone thinks that he has known, he has not yet known as he ought to know." For perhaps even the Word of God himself, according to that whereby "the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us," will be known in one way in the present state of life, and in another way when that which is perfect shall have come; and will be perceived in one way now in the form of a servant, but then in another way in the form of God and in equality with the Father. On account of all which things we seem to live among the nations either "in the form of doctrine," as the Apostle says, and not yet in the doctrine itself, or "in the shadow of Christ," as Jeremiah named it, and not yet in Christ himself.

We "were" slaves to sin, but we "are" no longer.

You who once were slaves to sin have broken away from it by the free will of your mind and have embraced spiritual teaching instead.

"Thanks be to God." Our deliverance from those evils is not a matter of human strength, but of God's; which is why one must give thanks. Then you became obedient not by compulsion, but by your own heartfelt disposition; therefore do not return to the worse things, from which you withdrew voluntarily. As proof that although they themselves came, yet all this depended also on the grace of God, he added: "you delivered yourselves," that is, you were guided by God to the form of teaching. And what is the form of teaching? To live in a devout and well-ordered manner.

Then when he says, but thanks be to God, he shows the folly of obeying sin and thereby returning to the slavery of sin: first, by considering the benefit we have received. For if someone, by another's graciousness is freed from slavery, it is unfitting to subject oneself freely to slavery. Hence, since we have been freed from sin by the grace of God, it is unfitting willfully to return again to the slavery of sin. Second, by considering the state into which we were led after freedom from sin, namely, that we are slaves to justice. But, it is not lawful for a slave to subject himself to the dominion of an opposite master; hence, it is not lawful, if we have been made slaves of justice, to return to the slavery of sin.

The Apostle touches on both of these considerations, when he says: I thank God, and you too should thank God, that you were the servants of sin, because he who commits sin, is a servant of sin (John 8:34), but have obeyed, namely, by believing: for obedience to the faith, in all nations (Rom 1:5); and this not as though compelled, but from the heart: for with the heart, we believe unto justice (Rom 10:10), unto that form of doctrine, i.e., to the doctrine of the Catholic faith: follow the pattern of the sound words you have heard from me (2 Tim 1:13), into which you have been delivered: i.e., gave yourselves entirely: but first they gave themselves to the Lord and to us by the will of God (2 Cor 8:5). And by this being then freed from sin, so that it is not fitting to desert justice: you were bought with a price (1 Cor 7:23) and are not your own.

There are two gifts of God which he here points out. The "freeing from sin," and also the "making them servants to righteousness," which is better than any freedom. For God hath done the same as if a person were to take an orphan, who had been carried away by savages into their own country, and were not only to free him from captivity, but were to set a kind father ever him, and bring him to very great dignity. And this has been done in our case. For it was not our old evils alone that He freed us from, since He even led us to the life of angels, and paved the way for us to the best conversation, handing us over to the safe keeping of righteousness, and killing our former evils, and deadening the old man, and leading us to an immortal life.

"And being freed from sin, you have been made the servants of justice." In these words there is an exposition of the things he said above. For if you no longer serve sin, it is certain that, being freed from it, you have been made the servants of justice. But it is asked who it is that frees from sin. Without doubt, the knowledge of the truth. For thus Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him: "If you believe my word, you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free." It is therefore the truth that frees from sin, and the knowledge of the truth. And it is certain that everyone who has been freed from sin serves justice. But when we say, let him serve justice — since justice is one out of the choir of the virtues — it is as if we were to say that if anyone has been freed from sin, he will serve truth, and will serve wisdom, and will serve chastity, and will serve piety. For thus do I understand also that which is said: "Open to me the gates of justice, and entering into them I will confess to the Lord." For he who wishes to confess to the Lord enters not the gates of justice alone, but also of truth, and of wisdom, and of piety, and of chastity. For there is one hall of all the virtues, whose doors the just man asks to be opened to him under the name of justice.

This is according to the teaching and example of Christ, who has taught us to get rid not only of sins but also of opportunities to sin.

Two, he says, benefits you received from God: you were both freed from such dishonor and became servants of righteousness, which constitutes great glory for you.

In recalling the weakness of the flesh, Paul wants to say that he is demanding less from us than the worship of God would normally require.… In order to remove from us any reason to be afraid of coming to faith, because that might seem to us to be unbearable and rough, Paul commands us to serve God with the same amount of zeal that we previously served the devil. For as we ought to be more willing to serve God than the devil, given that God brings salvation and the devil damnation, yet the spiritual physician does not demand more from us, lest in avoiding the more difficult precepts on account of our weakness we should remain in death. Thus the Lord says: "Take my yoke upon you, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

Since he had required great strictness of life, charging us to be dead to the world, and to have died unto wickedness, and to abide with no notion towards the workings of sin, and seemed to be saying something great and burdensome, and too much for human nature; through a desire to show that he is not making any exorbitant demand, nor even as much as might be expected of one who enjoyed so great a gift, but one quite moderate and light, he proves it from contraries, and says, "I speak after the manner of men," as much as to say, Going by human reasonings; by such as one usually meets with. For he signifies either this, or the moderateness of it, by the term applied, "after the manner of men." For elsewhere he uses the same word. "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man," that is, moderate and small. "For as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness." And truly the masters are very different ones, but still it is an equal amount of servitude that I ask. For men ought to give a much larger one, and so much the larger as this is a greater and better mastership than the other. Nevertheless I make no greater demand "because of the infirmity," and that, he does not say of your free will or readiness of spirit, but "of your flesh," so making what he says the less severe. And yet on one side there is uncleanness, on the other holiness: on the one iniquity, and on the other righteousness. And who is so wretched, he says, and in such straits as not to spend as much earnestness upon the service of Christ, as upon that of sin and the devil? Hear then what follows, and you will see clearly that we do not even spend this little. For when (stated in this naked way) it does not seem credible or easy to admit, and nobody would endure to hear that he does not serve Christ so much as he did serve the devil, he proves it by what follows, and renders it credible by bringing that slavery before us, and saying how they did serve him.

"I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members to serve uncleanness, and iniquity unto iniquity, so now present your members to serve righteousness unto sanctification." By these words the Apostle strikes a certain shame into his hearers, so that they may at least render this much service to righteousness and sanctification as they had formerly paid to uncleanness and iniquity. What, then, is so human — that is, what is so light, what is so free of burden, and what could no weakness of the flesh whatever excuse? "Just as," he says, "you presented your members to serve uncleanness, and iniquity unto iniquity, so now present your members to serve righteousness unto sanctification." It is indeed inglorious that anyone should serve the virtues only in the same measure as he served the vices. For righteousness ought to be honored far more abundantly and far more intently. But I, he says, act humanly and after the common measure: I ask the same things, I require like things. Once your feet ran to the temples of demons; now let them run to the Church of God. Formerly they ran to shed blood; now let them run to set blood free. Formerly your hands were stretched out to plunder what belonged to others; now let them be stretched out to bestow what is their own. Formerly your eyes looked about after a woman, or after something belonging to another, that they might covet it; now let them look about after the poor, the weak, the needy, that they may show mercy. Your ears took delight in empty hearing, or in the disparagement of good men; now let them be turned to hearing the word of God, to the exposition of the law, and to receiving the discipline of wisdom. Let the tongue that has grown accustomed to insults, curses, and filthy speech now be turned to blessing the Lord at all times: let it bring forth sound and honorable discourse, that it may give grace to those who hear, and let it speak truth with its neighbor. But what need is there to pursue these things one by one, when it is plain even to you how to fit to the virtues the service of each member which it rendered to the vices, and to turn now to chastity and sanctification the activity which it rendered to uncleanness? Here he seems indeed to have named righteousness for all the virtues together, just as, on the contrary, he has put iniquity for all the vices together. He added, to be sure, "of righteousness unto sanctification," namely so as to commend the part of chastity both generally along with the rest and specifically by itself. But look also at this, that everywhere through these words he indicates the freedom of the will, and shows that each one has it in his own power that the services which he formerly rendered to iniquity unto iniquity he may, his purpose being turned to the better, render to righteousness and sanctification — which surely could not come about if either nature resisted, as some think, or the course of the stars stood in the way.

But also each and every one of the members, if they serve in the offices of the commandments of God, are to be called circumcised; but if they run riot beyond the laws divinely prescribed for them, they are to be reckoned uncircumcised. And this, I think, is what the Apostle said: "for as you presented your members to serve iniquity unto iniquity, so now present your members to serve righteousness unto sanctification." For when our members served iniquity, they were not circumcised, nor was the covenant of God in them; but when they have begun to serve "righteousness unto sanctification," the promise which was made to Abraham is fulfilled in them. For then the law of God and His covenant is sealed in them.

Paul is saying, in effect: "Although you ought to serve righteousness much more than you previously served sin, I nevertheless make allowance for your weakness so that you might serve righteousness just as much as you once served sin." Or perhaps it is this: Whatever the soul does in a carnal fashion is held against the flesh, but if the flesh performs a spiritual deed the whole person becomes spiritual.… We offered our members to serve sin; it is not the case, as the Manichaeans say, that it was the nature of the body to have sin ingrained in it.

Then, wishing to say that the Romans should serve God just as they served sin, he remarks beforehand: "I speak after the manner of men," that is, I am presenting something lowly, unworthy of the subject, proportionate to your weakness. For it was fitting to show an incomparably greater measure of service to God than to sin; but because of your weakness, he says, present at least an equal measure. Notice how clearly he showed our voluntary servitude by saying: "now present your members." Of your own accord, he says, making yourselves captives, you subjected yourselves to uncleanness, that is, adultery, fornication, the most shameful deeds, and why do I speak of uncleanness alone — to every kind of "iniquity," and moreover "as servants to iniquity," that is, so as to practice still greater iniquity: for having committed some sin, you did not stop there, but found in that very thing an incentive to further iniquity. Therefore, in the same measure present your members "as servants to righteousness," that is, to every virtue, so as to lead a life in chastity and holiness, and not in the former uncleanness.

After showing with a reason based on God's grace that we should not continue in sin but should serve God, the Apostle shows the same thing with a reason based on a condition of the former life. In regard to this he does three things: first, he describes the terms in which he will present his teaching; second, he presents the teaching, at for as you have yielded; third, he gives the reason for the teaching, at for when you were the servants.

First, therefore, he says: I have advised that you yield yourselves to God. I speak to you a human thing, i.e., as suited to human feebleness. For man is sometimes so presented in Scripture as to signify a weakness of the human condition: I am a weak man, and of a short time, and falling short of the understanding of judgment and laws (Wis 9:5); since there are jealousy and strife among you, are you not carnal and walking as mere men? (1 Cor 3:3). He assigns the cause, when he adds, because of the infirmity; for it is to the mature that the more perfect precepts are given: wisdom, however, we speak among those who are mature (1 Cor 2:6); solid food is for the mature (Heb 5:14). Lighter precepts are given to weaker men: as to little ones in Christ, I fed you with milk, not with solid food (1 Cor 3:1); you have become such as have need of milk and not of solid food (Heb 5:12). But this weakness comes not from the spirit but from the flesh, because the corruptible body is a load on the soul (Wis 9:15); hence, he adds: of your flesh: the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak (Matt 26:41).

Then when he says, for as you have yielded, he presents the teaching he called human, in which he teaches that the body must be yielded to the slavery of justice in the same measure as we yielded it to the slavery of sin. And this is what he says: for as you have yielded your members to serve, namely, by doing evil works, uncleanness and iniquity born in the heart. Here uncleanness refers to sins of the flesh: but immorality and every uncleanness, let it not even be named among you (Eph 5:3), and iniquity to spiritual sins, particularly those that harm one's neighbor: he plots iniquity while on his bed (Ps 36:4). Which sins having been born in the heart, the members serve unto iniquity, namely to the work of committing iniquity. And here the Psalmist uses iniquity to mean uncleanness and iniquity, for all sin is iniquity (1 John 3:4). And this in so far as it is discordant with the justice of the divine law. So now, set free from sin, yield your members, namely, by performing good works, to serve justice proposed to us in the divine law: and this unto sanctification, i.e., for the performance and increase of holiness: let the holy still be holy (Rev 22:11). He calls this human, because right reason demands that man serve justice more than he previously served sin: for as it was your mind to go astray from God; so when you return again, you shall seek him ten times as much (Bar 4:28).

It is clear that whoever is free of God is a slave of sin. For as long as he sins he goes away from God and comes under sin.

Now what he says is somewhat of this kind, When ye lived in wickedness, and impiety, and the worst of evils, the state of compliance ye lived in was such that ye did absolutely no good thing at all. For this is, "ye were free from righteousness." That is ye were not subject to it, but estranged from it wholly. For ye did not even so much as divide the manner of servitude between righteousness and sin, but gave yourselves wholly up to wickedness. Now, therefore, since ye have come over to righteousness, give yourselves wholly up to virtue, doing nothing at all of vice, that the measure you give may be at least equal. And yet it is not the mastership only that is so different, but in the servitude itself there is a vast difference. And this too he unfolds with great perspicuity, and shows what conditions they served upon then, and what now. And as yet he says nothing of the harm accruing from the thing, but hitherto speaks of the shame.

"For when you were slaves of sin, you were free with respect to righteousness. What fruit therefore did you have then in those things of which you are now ashamed? For their end is death. But now, having been freed from sin and made slaves to God, you have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end, eternal life." How anyone is a slave of sin has already been sufficiently said in what went before, when we were expounding that passage: "Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves as slaves for obedience — you are slaves of him whom you obey, whether of sin or of righteousness?" When, therefore, anyone serves sin, he is free with respect to righteousness, that is, a stranger to righteousness. For here he calls "free" one who is a stranger, and rightly so. For no one can at the same time serve both sin and righteousness, just as the Savior also said, that "no one can serve two masters." But of these things we have spoken more fully above. This indeed is to be noted, that there is both a blameworthy freedom and a praiseworthy servitude. For to be free with respect to righteousness is a crime; but to be its slave is praiseworthy. And when he says that one becomes a slave of righteousness, understand at the same time a slave of wisdom too, and of piety, and of modesty, and of all the virtues together: just as, on the contrary, he who is a slave of sin is at the same time a slave of evil desire, and of anger, and of rage, and of unchastity, and of robbery; and he serves all the vices and crimes together. Wherefore we ought always to examine ourselves in each single thing we do, and in every act to consider whom we are serving, whether sin unto iniquity, or righteousness unto sanctification.

As you are in no way slaves to sin inwardly, you should become free of every sin.

He who serves the devil is free from God, but he who being freed serves God is free from the devil. As a result it is apparent that a false liberty could have been had from a defect of the human will but that a true liberty could not have been received without the help of the liberator.

When you lived in vices, he says, you were estranged from righteousness; at that time you did not submit to it, you did not at all wish to serve it, and you freed yourselves from it. Therefore now too, serving righteousness, do not submit to sin.

Then he assigns the reason for this teaching, saying, for when you were the servants. In regard to this he does two things: first, he presents a reason for the teaching; second, he proves something he had presupposed, at for the wages of sin is death. The reason behind the above teaching is that the state of grace is preferable to the state of sin. For if more benefits accrue to us from the state of justice than from sin, we should be more eager to serve justice than we were to serve sin. First, therefore, he describes the state of sin; second, the state of justice, at but now being made free. In regard to the first he does three things: first, he describes the condition of the sinner; second, the effect of sin, at what fruit therefore; third, its end, at for the end of them is death.

In regard to the first it should be considered that man is by nature free because of his reason and will, which cannot be forced but can be inclined by certain things. Therefore, in regard to the freedom of the will man is always free of compulsion, although he is not free of inclinations. For the free judgment is sometimes inclined to the good through the habit of grace or justice; and then it is in slavery to justice but free from sin. But sometimes the free judgment is inclined to evil through the habit of sin; and then it is in slavery to sin and free from justice. Now, slavery to sin consists in being drawn to consent to sin against the judgment of reason: everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin (John 8:34). And in regard to this he says, for when you were the servants of sin. Freedom from justice, on the other hand, implies that a man rushes headlong into sin without the restraint of justice; in regard to this he says, you were free men to justice. This happens especially in those who sin of set purpose. For those who sin out of weakness or passion are restrained by some bridle of justice, that they do not seem to be freed from justice altogether: long ago you broke your yoke and burst your bonds; and you said, 'I will not serve' (Jer 2:20); a vain man is lifted up into pride, and thinks himself born free like a wild ass' colt (Job 11:12).

Yet it should be noted that this state involves true slavery and only apparent freedom. For since man should act according to reason, he is truly a slave when he is led away from what is reasonable by something alien. Furthermore, if he is not restrained by the yoke of reason from following concupiscence, he is free only in the opinion of those who suppose that the highest good is to follow one's concupiscence.

What are the fruits of sin? Learning from them what a good life is we are ashamed by the way we lived so wickedly before. And it is not only that the opinion of the pagans is wicked but also the heresy which is found most of all in Phrygia, to which only a morally corrupt person would belong, in which there is no sacrament and Christian piety has died out. Behold a freedom full of sins and bound by wickedness, whose deeds have only shame as their reward and whose end is death! Our departure is the end of this life and its deeds, and either death or life will succeed it. But here the word death has a double meaning, for it shifts from one kind of death to another.

But unless Christianity is wholly false, the perception of ourselves which we have in moments of shame must be the only true one; and even Pagan society has usually recognised "shamelessness" as the nadir of the soul. In trying to extirpate Shame we have broken down one of the ramparts of the human spirit, madly exulting in the work as the Trojans exulted when they broke their walls and pulled the Horse into Troy. I do not know that there is anything to be done but to set about the rebuilding as soon as we can. It is mad work to remove hypocrisy by removing the temptation to hypocrisy: the "frankness" of people sunk below shame is a very cheap frankness.

So great was the slavery, that even the recollection of it now makes you ashamed; but if the recollection makes one ashamed, the reality would much more. And so you gained now in two ways, in having been freed from the shame; and also in having come to know the condition you were in; just as then ye were injured in two ways, in doing things deserving shame, and in not even knowing to be ashamed. And this is worse than the former. Yet still ye kept in a state of servitude. Having then proved most abundantly the harm of what took place then from the shame of it, he comes to the thing in question. Now what is this thing? "For the end of those things is death." Since then shame seems to be no such serious evil, he comes to what is very fearful, I mean death; though in good truth what he had before mentioned were enough. For consider how exceeding great the mischief must be, inasmuch as, even when freed from the vengeance due to it, they could not get free of the shame. What wages then, he says, do you expect from the reality, when from the bare recollection, and that too when you are freed from the vengeance, you hide your face and blush, though under such grace as you are! But God's side is far otherwise.

"What fruit, therefore," he says, "did you have then in those things of which you are now ashamed? For their end is death." Divine Scripture teaches that there is fruit both of good things and of evil, as the Savior himself says in the Gospels: "Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree evil, and its fruit evil. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruits, nor an evil tree good fruits." In these words the purpose and will of a man seems to be called the tree, either good or evil, while his works are the fruit. If anyone turns his mind and purpose to righteousness, he is without doubt ashamed, and he himself brands himself for his former deeds which he did while placed under sin, because "their end is death." But I ask, what death? It is certain that it is not this common death. For no one is converted to righteousness after death, or is ashamed for past deeds done badly. What then is it? Does he perhaps seem to be speaking of the death of sin, since "the soul that sins, it shall die"? Or can it rather be understood that he is speaking of that death by which we die with Christ to sin, and put an end to vices and crimes, so that on this account he seems to have said that "their end is death"?

And what fruit did you have from impurity? None, except dishonor — and why do I speak of dishonor? You had death as your fruit: "for the end of those things is death," both bodily very often, and spiritual always. But from death you have been delivered by the grace of Christ, and the shame still remains not without benefit; for now you are ashamed of those sins.

Then when he says, what fruit therefore, he shows the effect of sin. One effect he excludes, namely, a fruitful return, when he says, what fruit therefore had you, namely, when you were committing those sins. For the works of sin are unfruitful, because they do not help man to obtain happiness: their works are unprofitable works (Isa 59:6); woe to you that devise that which is unprofitable and work evil in your beds (Mic 2:1). The effect he mentions is confusion, saying, in those things, namely, the sins, of which you are now, in the state of repentance, ashamed because of their baseness. After you instructed me, I struck my thigh; I was confounded and ashamed (Jer 31:19). You shall be ashamed of the gardens (Isa 1:29), namely, of the pleasure you had chosen.

Then he mentions the end of sin, saying, for the end of them, namely of sins, is death. This of course is not the objective in the mind of the sinner, because he does not intend to incur death by sin; nevertheless, it is the end of those sins, because of their very nature they bring temporal death. For when the soul separates God from itself, it deserves to have its body separated from it. Sins also bring eternal death, because when one wills to be separated from God for a time, he deserves to be separated from him forever; and this is eternal death: they who do such things are worthy of death (Rom 1:32).

If when we receive the forgiveness of sins we become imitators of good deeds, we shall acquire holiness and we shall obtain eternal life at the end, for we shall pass from death, which Paul said was the end, to life, which is without end.

But on us it is incumbent to reach the unaccomplished end, obeying the commands-that is, God-and living according to them, irreproachably and intelligently, through knowledge of the divine will; and assimilation as far as possible in accordance with right reason is the end, and restoration to perfect adoption by the Son, which ever glorifies the Father by the great High Priest who has deigned to call us brethren and fellow-heirs. And the apostle, succinctly describing the end, writes in the Epistle to the Romans: "But now, being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life."

Of the former, the fruit was shame, even after the being set free. Of these the fruit is holiness, and where holiness is, there is all confidence. But of those things the end is death, and of these everlasting life. Do you see how he points out some things as already given, and some as existing in hope, and from what are given he draws proof of the others also, that is from the holiness of the life. For to prevent your saying (i.e. as an objection) everything lies in hope, he points out that you have already reaped fruits, first the being freed from wickedness, and such evils as the very recollection of puts one to shame; second, the being made a servant unto righteousness; a third, the enjoying of holiness; a fourth, the obtaining of life, and life too not for a season, but everlasting. Yet with all these, he says, do but serve as ye served it. For though the master is far preferable, and the service also has many advantages, and the rewards too for which ye are serving, still I make no further demand. Next, since he had mentioned arms and a king, he keeps on with the metaphor.

"But now, having been freed from sin and made slaves to God, you have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end, eternal life." He compares fruits with fruits: and the fruits of sin, for which the saints are now — that is, after they have been freed from sin and made slaves to God — ashamed, he declares to be ended in death; but the fruits of righteousness, which are unto sanctification, he says receive as their end eternal life. In this, first of all, this must not be passed over: that he was unwilling to name in what those fruits consist for which we are now ashamed, whereas he says that the fruit of those who have been freed from sin and made slaves to God is unto sanctification. For the memory of good things is to be kept more often than that of evil ones. And as to his mentioning first the evil fruits and their end, but afterwards the fruits which are unto sanctification and their end, which is eternal life — see how this is like that prophetic saying in which he himself says: "I will kill, and I will make alive"; and again: "I will strike, and I will heal"; and once more in Job: "He himself causes pain, and gives the remedy: he strikes, and his hands heal." All these things look to this, that one must first die with Christ, and so live together with him; and first suffer with him, and so reign together with him. For unless we first die to sin through repentance, we cannot live to God through righteousness. Moreover, as to what he said above: "But having been freed from sin, you were made slaves of righteousness" — now, when he has said in like manner, "But having been freed from sin," he did not in like manner say, "you were made slaves of righteousness," but, "you were made slaves of God": the distinction is not idle. For by this it is shown that after anyone has been freed from sin, he ought first to serve righteousness and all the virtues together, so that from there he may ascend by progress to this, that he may become a slave of God — although to serve righteousness is also to serve God. For Christ is righteousness, and to serve Christ is to serve God. Yet there is an order of advances, and there are degrees among the virtues: and therefore Christ is said to reign, doubtless according to this, that he is righteousness, until in each one the fullness of the virtues is completed; but when the measure of perfection has been fulfilled, then he is said to hand over "the kingdom to God and the Father," so that now "God may be all in all." But I think this too must still be observed (since we have said that the Apostle made a comparison of evil fruits and good fruits): that there, where he was speaking of the evil fruits, he did not say, You had your fruit "in those things of which you are now ashamed," but he said, "What fruit therefore did you have?" — whereas where he speaks of the good fruits, he adds "your." For thus he writes: "You have your fruit unto sanctification": by which he seems to me to indicate that evil fruit, fruit to be ashamed of and repented of, is not our fruit. For God did not plant in us an evil tree that would bring forth evil fruits, as he himself also says through the prophet: "I planted you a fruitful vine, wholly true; how have you been turned into the bitterness of an alien vine?" Therefore, even if we bring forth evil fruits, they are not ours but another's, that is, sin's; but if we bring forth good fruits unto sanctification, they are our own fruits. For human nature received it from its Creator that it should bear these fruits. But those alien ones were not sown in us by God. And do you wish to know that the Lord does not sow evil fruits? Hear him saying in the Gospel: "Did we not sow good seed in the field? Whence then has it tares? And answering he said: An enemy man has done this." And do you wish to learn still further that these fruits of the flesh are not ours, but another's? The Lord himself again says in the Gospel: "If you have not been faithful in what is another's, who will give you what is your own?" Thus, then, by the mystery of a profound reasoning, in the case of evil fruit the Apostle did not add "your"; but of the good he says: "You have your fruit unto sanctification." And that he calls those more perfect whom he names as serving God than those whom he had first said served righteousness, is proved also from this, that he placed their fruit "unto sanctification"; and these may be understood to be those who have devoted themselves to chastity and continence; whereas those whom he said were slaves of righteousness may also be seen to be those who, though placed in marriage, nevertheless devote their labor to righteousness and to all the virtues. But concerning eternal life, although it has often been discussed by us in other places, nevertheless in the present passage it must be briefly touched upon, that eternity in the Scriptures is sometimes put in the sense that it knows no end, but sometimes in the sense that it has no end indeed in the present age, yet has one in the age to come. Sometimes the span of a certain time, or even of one man's life, is called eternity, as is that which is written in the law concerning the Hebrew slave: "If he loves," it says, "his wife and his children, and wishes to remain in servitude for their sake, you shall pierce his ear with an awl at the doorpost, and he shall be your slave forever." Here without doubt he has put "forever" for the time of a man's life. And again in Ecclesiastes it is said: "A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth stands forever": here "forever" indicates the time of the present age. But where he says "eternal life," we must look to what the Savior himself said: "But this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent"; and again: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life." And the Apostle himself says in other places, that "we shall be caught up in the clouds to meet Christ in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord." Therefore, just as to be always with the Lord has no end, so also eternal life is to be believed to have no end.

Doubtless there is no blessing in something for which one feels shame when repenting of it. Everyone who comes to know goodness is ashamed of his former actions, but anyone who is ashamed of righteousness is not aware of its fruit. Therefore, those who sin get nothing out of it in the present, and in the future they will reap eternal death. But those who serve God have the gift of the Holy Spirit in the present and eternal life in the future. Or perhaps it should be read like this: what have you got out of doing things which make you feel ashamed whenever you think of them? The return you have already received is that, having been sanctified by baptism, you are alive.

Throughout this chapter, while withdrawing our members from unrighteousness and sin and applying them to righteousness and holiness, and transferring the same from the wages of death to the gift of eternal life, Paul undoubtedly promises to the flesh the reward of salvation. Now it would not have been consistent for a rule of holiness and righteousness to be especially enjoined for the flesh if the reward of such a discipline were not also within its reach; nor could even baptism be ordered for the flesh if by its regeneration a course were not inaugurated tending to its restitution.

The fruit of the works of sin is shame; the fruit of righteousness is sanctification, purity, innocence. The end of the former is death; the end of the latter is eternal life.

Then when he says, but now, he describes the state of justice: first, he describes a condition of this state; second, the effect, at you have your fruit; third, the end, at and the end life.

In regard to the first it should be noted that just as when one is by sin inclined to evil, he is free from justice, so when one is by the habit of justice and grace inclined to good, he is free from sin, so that he is not overcome by it to the point of consenting to it. Hence he says: but now in the state of justice, being made free from sin: if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed (John 8:36). On the other hand, just as in the state of sin one is a slave of sin which he obeys, so in the state of justice one is a slave of God and obeys him willingly: serve the Lord with gladness (Ps 100:2). And this is what he adds: and become servants to God: O Lord, I am your servant (Ps 116). But this is true freedom and the best form of slavery, because by justice man is inclined to what befits him and is turned from what befits concupiscence which is distinctively bestial.

Then when he says, you have your fruit, he mentions the effect of justice, saying, you have your fruit unto sanctification, i.e., the fruit of sanctity by good works is your return, inasmuch as these please you in a spiritual and holy way: my flowers are the fruit of honor and riches (Sir 24:23); but the fruit of the Spirit is joy, peace (Gal 5:22).

After that he mentions the end, saying, and you have the end, life everlasting, which is the goal of just men who do all their works for the sake of obtaining eternal life: seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added unto you (Matt 6:33). It is also the end of the works themselves which merit eternal life, since they are done out of obedience to God and in imitation of God: my sheep hear my voice, and they follow me; and I give them eternal life (John 10:27).

Paul says that the wages of sin is death because death comes through sin, and thus whoever refrains from sin will receive eternal life as his reward. Those who do not sin will not undergo the second death.Just as those who follow sin obtain death, so those who follow the grace of God, that is, the faith of Christ which pardons sins, will have eternal life. They will therefore rejoice at being dissolved for a time, knowing that they will obtain this life which is free of all care and has no end. It was when he saw this from afar that St. Simeon asked to be released from this world that he might go into peace, that is, into life which allows no disturbance. And he bears witness that this gift is given to us by God through Christ our Lord, so that we should offer thanks to God through no one other than his Son.

Eternal life is unjustly given for good merits. Rather, merit is first given freely by a benevolent Savior.

The third fruit of grace is the attainment of eternal beatitude. Whence the Apostle to the Romans: "The wages of sin is death: but the grace of God is life eternal." You have the planting of life and of death. The grace of God is life eternal. But what is sin? Surely nothing other than the tree of death. Here is the tree of death, and here is the tree of life; place yourself in the garden where the tree of life is. Foolish would he be who plants the tree of death: if you planted a tree on which you were to be hanged, you would be foolish. The wicked therefore plant that tree of sin.

We must, then, as is fit, in investigating the nature of the body and the essence of the soul, apprehend the end of each, and not regard death as an evil. "For when ye were the servants of sin," says the apostle, "ye were free from righteousness. What fruit had ye then in those things in which ye are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now, being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death: but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord." The assertion, then, may be hazarded, that it has been shown that death is the fellowship of the soul in a state of sin with the body; and life the separation from sin.

But again, those who assert that He was simply a mere man, begotten by Joseph, remaining in the bondage of the old disobedience, are in a state of death having been not as yet joined to the Word of God the Father, nor receiving liberty through the Son, as He does Himself declare: "If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." But, being ignorant of Him who from the Virgin is Emmanuel, they are deprived of His gift, which is eternal life; and not receiving the incorruptible Word, they remain in mortal flesh, and are debtors to death, not obtaining the antidote of life. To whom the Word says, mentioning His own gift of grace: "I said, Ye are all the sons of the Highest, and gods; but ye shall die like men." He speaks undoubtedly these words to those who have not received the gift of adoption, but who despise the incarnation of the pure generation of the Word of God, defraud human nature of promotion into God, and prove themselves ungrateful to the Word of God, who became flesh for them. For it was for this end that the Word of God was made man, and He who was the Son of God became the Son of man, that man, having been taken into the Word, and receiving the adoption, might become the son of God. For by no other means could we have attained to incorruptibility and immortality, unless we had been united to incorruptibility and immortality. But how could we be joined to incorruptibility and immortality, unless, first, incorruptibility and immortality had become that which we also are, so that the corruptible might be swallowed up by incorruptibility, and the mortal by immortality, that might receive the adoption of sons?

After speaking of the wages of sin, in the case of the blessings, he has not kept to the same order: for he does not say, the wages of good deeds, "but the gift of God;" to show, that it was not of themselves that they were freed, nor was it a due they received, neither yet a return, nor a recompense of labors, but by grace all these things came about. And so there was a superiority for this cause also, in that He did not free them only, or change their condition for a better, but that He did it without any labor or trouble upon their part: and that He not only freed them, but also gave them much more than before, and that through His Son. And the whole of this he has interposed as having discussed the subject of grace, and being on the point of overthrowing the Law next. That these things then might not both make them rather listless, he inserted the part about strictness of life, using every opportunity of rousing the hearer to the practice of virtue. For when he calls death the wages of sin, he alarms them again, and secures them against dangers to come. For the words he uses to remind them of their former estate, he also employs so as to make them thankful, and more secure against any inroads of temptations.

"For the wages of sin is death; but the grace of God is eternal life, in Christ Jesus our Lord." What he said here, "The wages of sin is death," is like what he had said above, "But their end is death." But whose end? Doubtless of those things "for which you now blush," whose fruit he does not even judge worthy to name. And again: "But the grace of God is eternal life, in Christ Jesus our Lord," is like that which he said: "You have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end indeed eternal life." And he rightly preserves the metaphor, that is, the figure of military service proposed from the beginning, so that he says the wages due are paid out as death to those soldiering under sin as king — or rather to those obeying its tyranny. But it was not fitting that God give wages to his own soldiers as though some debt, but rather a gift and grace, which is "eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." I do not think that this too is empty, that to eternal life he added "in Christ our Lord"; but perhaps because he wished it to be known that it is one thing to have eternal life alone, and another to have eternal life in Christ Jesus. For those also who shall rise unto confusion and everlasting reproach will indeed have eternal life, yet not in Christ Jesus, but in eternal confusion and reproach; but the just, who shall rise unto eternal life in Christ Jesus, will have eternal life. Sin therefore bestows upon its own soldiers, in whom it reigns, the wages it deems worthy — death. But we call death not this bodily death, but that of which it is written, that "the soul that sins, that soul shall die." And although we have often already spoken about the diversity of death, nevertheless, since the present passage has prompted it, to repeat the same things more openly, and to gather into one what has been said in scattered places, would be neither irksome to me nor burdensome to my readers. Death in the Scriptures is indeed one name, but it signifies many things. For the separation of the body from the soul is called death. But this can be called neither evil nor good: for it is intermediate, which is termed indifferent. And again, the separation of the soul from God is called death, which comes through sin. This is plainly evil, and it is also named the wage of sin. This death God did not make, nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living; but by the envy of the devil this death entered into the world. And again the very author of this death, the devil, is called death, and he it is who is said to be the last enemy of Christ to be destroyed. But also the place of hell, in which souls were held by death, is itself likewise called death. There is spoken of also that praiseworthy death by which one dies to sin and is buried together with Christ, through which the amendment of the soul is effected and eternal life is acquired. Since therefore there is so great a difference contained in this one name of death, if you hear God saying, "I will kill, and I will make alive," you ought to understand what sort of death it befits God to inflict: that one, doubtless, which confers life — that is, that one should die to sin and live to God. "When he slew them," it says, "they sought him, and they returned." Teaching most plainly through this, that whomever God slays, he slays for this reason, that he may die to sin and seek God. So do I understand also that which is written, that God slew Her the son of Judah, since he was wicked; and whatever else of this kind we read written about God. So too the Apostle handed over the sinner unto the destruction of the flesh, that he might make the spirit safe — that is, that he might die to sin and live to God. And so in the present passage too the wages that sin gives are said to be death: not that death which separates the body from the soul, but that by which through sin the soul is separated from God. And again we are said to be baptized into the death of Christ — into that death, doubtless, by which he died to sin once for all, so that we too may be separated from sin and live to God. For whoever dies by such a death is said to be justified from sin. Thus therefore the distinction must be held, that even if God is said to kill and to hand over to death, the death that is given by God is of such a kind as to confer life. For nothing evil is given by the Good; though it be sorrowful, though full of pain, yet it is inflicted with a view to healing and with regard for health, so that the soul which the allurement and sweetness of sin had separated from God, the austerity of severity may separate from sin. But on the contrary, whatever sin gives, whatever it confers, is death to the soul, even if it bestows wages.

One who does military service for sin receives death as his wages. Paul does not use the term "wages of righteousness" because there was no righteousness in us before our baptism which God could repay. Righteousness is not obtained by our effort but is a gift of God.

"For the wages of sin is death." Thus, he says, to you also, who served sin, sin gave "wages" — death. "But the gift of God." He did not say: wages from God, but: "gift." For you did not receive it as a reward or recompense for labors, but all of that came from grace in Christ Jesus: for all was accomplished by Him.

Then when he says, for the wages of sin, he clarifies what he had said about the ends of evil and of good. First, in regard to evil he says: we have stated that the end of sins is death: for the wages of sin is death. Wages or stipends were the salaries paid soldiers. These were paid in money. Therefore, because by sinning one makes war by using his members as arms for sin, death is said to be the wages of sin, i.e., the return paid to those who serve it. Death, therefore, is the return which pays those who are its slaves. It is not the end they seek but the end paid to them: on the wicked he will rain coals of fire and brimstone; a scorching wind will be the portion of their cup (Ps 11:6).

In regard to the good he says, but the grace of God, life everlasting. For since he had said that just men have eternal life, which it is certain cannot be had except through grace, then the very fact that we do what is good and that our works are worthy of eternal life is the result of God's grace: he bestows grace and glory (Ps 84:11). Thus, therefore, if our works are considered in themselves and as coming from our free will they do not merit eternal life condignly, but only as coming from the grace of the Holy Spirit. Hence it is said: the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life (John 4:14). And this in Christ Jesus our Lord, i.e., through Christ or inasmuch as we exist in him through faith and love: every one who sees the Son and believes in him has eternal life (John 6:40).