Commentary on Romans 8.26–9.15

“Likewise the Spirit too helps the weakness of our prayer.” Since above he mentioned that we groan and pray for liberation, and, placed in pain, we either want things said to be far in the future to happen soon, or the things through which we come to merit to be taken away quickly; and we seem to pray with a weak prayer, when its effect is denied. For he who asks against reason is weak; and therefore he shows that this weakness is helped by the Holy Spirit given to us. He helps by not allowing things to happen which are asked before they ought to be asked, or which are contrary. “For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought.” He declared that the weakness of our prayer signifies ignorance; for we are deceived, thinking that what we ask will profit, when it does not. Indeed to the same apostle, when he prayed three times that his temptations might cease, because they were frequent, it was said by the Lord: “My grace is sufficient for you; for power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9); that is, one lays up merit in this way, when one is found patient in tribulations. He learned, then, that what he asked was against him. And sometimes the petition is proud and foolish, as was that of the two apostles James and John, to whom, asking unfitting and immense things, it was said: “You do not know what you ask” (Matt 20:22). “But the Spirit himself intercedes for us with unutterable groanings.” The Spirit of the Lord is said to intercede for us not with human speech but in the manner of his own nature. For when what is of God speaks to God, it must speak in the manner in which he speaks from whom it is. For no one speaks to his fellow citizen in another language. For the Spirit given to us pours himself over our prayers, so as to cover our inexperience and lack of foresight with his movement, and to ask of God for us the things that profit us.

“But he who searches the hearts knows what the Spirit desires, because he intercedes for the saints according to God.” It is plain that to God, to whom nothing is silent or hidden, the prayer of all spirits is known; how much more that of the Holy Spirit, who is certainly of the same substance, and speaks not by the impulse of air, nor as the angels, nor as the other creatures, but as befits his divinity! We speak to God, then, when he seems to us silent; because he both sees when he is not seen, and asks for the things he knows please God and profit us. Then indeed the same Spirit interposes himself for us, when he knows that we ask contrary things through ignorance, not through boasting.

“But we know that for those who love God all things turn out for good, for those who are called saints according to his purpose.” He says this because, even if those who love God pray unskilfully, it will not harm them; because God, knowing the purpose of their heart and their lack of skill, does not count against them the contrary things they ask, but grants the things that should be given to those who love God. Hence the Lord too says: “For your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Matt 6:8, 32). Those, then, are called according to his purpose whom God foreknew, as believers, would be fit for him; so that before they believed, they were known.

“For those whom he foreknew.” Those whom he foreknew would be devoted to him, these he chose to take hold of the promised rewards; so that those who seem to believe and do not remain in the faith they began are denied to have been chosen by God; for those whom God has chosen remain with him. For there is one who is chosen for a time, like Saul and Judas, not from foreknowledge but from present righteousness. “To be conformed to the image of his Son.” He says this because they are predestined to the age to come for this purpose, that they may become like the Son of God, as I have mentioned above. “So that he may be the firstborn among many brothers.” Rightly firstborn, who before all creation was not made but born; after whose example God deigned to adopt people as his sons. Christ is also firstborn in regeneration. He is also firstborn from the dead, whose nature is unknown. And firstborn ascending into heaven after victory. Firstborn in all things, then, he is called our brother, because he deigned to be born a man; but he is Lord, because he is our God, as the prophet Jeremiah says: “This is our God, and no other will be reckoned besides him” (Bar 3:36).

“And those whom he predestined, these he also called.” To call is to help one who is thinking about faith, or to prick the heart of one whom he knows will listen. “And those whom he called, these he also justified; and those whom he justified, these he also glorified.” He says what he said above: that those whom God foreknew as fit for him remain believers, because it cannot be otherwise; except that those whom God foreknew, these he also justified, and therefore he also glorified them, so that they might become like the Son of God. As for the others, whom God did not foreknow, he has no concern for them in this grace, because he did not foreknow them as going to be fit. But if they believe, or are chosen for a time because they seem good, lest righteousness should seem despised, they do not remain so as to be glorified; as with Judas Iscariot, or those seventy-two who, though chosen, after taking offence withdrew from the Saviour (John 6:66).

“What, then, shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?” It is plain that when God bears witness to us, who is there who would dare to accuse us, when he who is judge foreknew us beforehand and judged us fit?

“He who did not spare his own Son, but handed him over for us all.” He exhorts us that we ought to be secure because of faith, showing that God, as one who foreknew, handed his Son over to death for us before we became faithful instead of ungodly. “How will he not also with him give us all things?” He says that God long ago decreed that those who believe in Christ are to be rewarded. For if he did for us what is greater and chief, handing over his true and most dear Son for us while we were still ungodly, why should he not be believed to do what is less for us who believe in him? For the rewards are already prepared for believers; for it is less to give us all things with him than to hand him over to death for our sake.

“Who will bring a charge against God’s elect?” It is plain that no one dares or is able to reconsider God’s judgment and foreknowledge concerning us. For who is there who could disapprove what God approves, since no one is equal to God? “It is God who justifies” (Isa 50:8). This is in the prophet Isaiah, which he sets down here as if it were his own; because there is no one else who can rebuke what God approves. Or lest perhaps God himself should accuse us: but he cannot accuse what he justifies.

“And who will be the one who condemns? Christ who died, or rather who also rose, and is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.” He denies that God accuses us, because he justifies us; and that Christ can condemn us, because he loves us with such affection that he died for us and, rising, always pleads our cause with the Father. His request cannot be despised, because he is at the right hand of God, that is, in the honour that God is; so that, secure about God the Father and Christ his Son, who will judge, we may rejoice in faith in him. Hence that which he says to the apostle Peter: “Behold, Satan has asked to sift you like wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail” (Luke 22:31–32). In this way, then, the Saviour intercedes for us: knowing the impudence and haughtiness of our adversary, when he stirs himself against us if we do not assent to him, the Saviour intercedes for us, lest he presume anything violently against us, so that his insolence may be held back. Yet the Son is said to intercede for this reason, though he does the whole himself and is equal to God the Father: since God is said to be one, lest the Father and the Son be thought a single person, or a union, Scripture speaks thus for the distinction of persons; so as to teach that the Son is not unequal, and to give precedence to the Father, because he is Father and because all things are from him.

“Who will separate us from the love of Christ?” That is, who will be able to turn us away from love of Christ, who has given us such great and countless benefits? “Tribulation?” But it does not do so, because no torments overcome the love of a firm Christian. For the love of one who loves is stirred the more if he is forbidden to love the one whose benefits he has felt; for while they think they are sowing against his merits, they awaken the remembrance of his benefits.

“Or distress? Or persecution? Or famine? Or nakedness? Or danger? Or the sword (as it is written: For your sake we are put to death all day long; we are reckoned as sheep for slaughter)? But in all these things we overcome because of him who loved us.” This is written in the forty-third psalm. It is plain, then, that all these destructions which he lists, tribulations, pressures and death, cannot be set beside or compared with the love of Christ which he has sown in us. For we have far greater benefits from him than all these things which seem adverse. For if we die for him, which seems the gravest of these, he too died for us; but he did so to profit us, whereas our death does not profit him but us. For we lose temporal life so that eternal life may be repaid to us. And what wonder if servants die for a good Lord, when the Lord died for servants, and wicked ones? His benefits, then, prevail, and exhort the mind to persevere because of him who loved us.

“For I am confident that neither death.” This confidence is from the pledge of Christ, by which he promised to help in tribulation the faith dedicated to him. “Nor life, nor angel, nor power, nor height, nor depth, nor things present, nor things to come, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” These are all the things that are brought on by the devil to draw us away, which he mentions to fortify us; so that, if they come, confident in hope and in the help of Christ, armed with faith we may fight against them. For what if death is inflicted? Is it not the greatest gain to find an occasion by which one may go sooner into the promised kingdom? Nor, if the present life is promised us furnished with rank, ought it to turn us away from the hope of the benefit of Christ, who we know will profit us not only in the future but also in the present. Nor indeed, if an angel shows himself to us to seduce us, suborned by the deceits of his father the devil, ought he to prevail against us; since we know that nothing is to be put before Christ, as the Angel of great counsel (Isa 9:6). Nor, if a mighty work is done by someone, as one is said to have been done by Simon Magus, who is said to have flown upward in the air in order to scandalize the people of Christ, ought it to lessen our faith, since we know that the Saviour, received by a cloud serving him, ascended above all the heavens (Acts 1:9). Nor, if he shows himself to us in height, of which the apostle John says, “Do you not know the height of Satan?” (Rev 2:24), ought he to take us from devotion to the Lord Jesus, who we know came down from heaven to join earthly things to spiritual. Nor, if through an illusion, by which he plans to seduce, he shows us a depth wondrous in horror, so that, terrified, we perhaps yield to him: not even so is it right that we break faith with Christ, who we know descended for our sake into the depth of the earth and, death being crushed, freed the human race. Nor, if he promises us things to come, as he promised Eve (Gen 3:5), shall we give him assent, separated from Christ, whom we believe and know to be God by power and nature. Nor, if by art and the subtlety of his cunning he fashions another creature for an hour, as Jannes and Jambres did before Pharaoh, is it fitting that by these things he should call us back from God the true Creator, who we well know created through Christ his Son a creation existing for ever (2 Tim 3:8). Some think that by “another creature” he meant idols; but that is not true, because he must have meant the one which Satan seems to fashion to excite the admiration of seduction. For which of the faithful would be seduced to the things from which he withdrew when the error was exposed? But he plans and fashions these things, through which he might seduce even the elect. There is nothing, then, that can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus: for God showed his love to us in Christ when he handed him over for us.

“I speak the truth in Christ Jesus, I do not lie, my conscience bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and unceasing pain in my heart; for I myself wished to be accursed from Christ for my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites.” Since above he seems to speak against the Jews, who think they are justified by the law, now, to show his wish and affection toward them, he says that he speaks with his conscience as witness, in Christ Jesus and in the Holy Spirit, so that faith might not be withheld from him as from their enemy. Therefore he gives as witnesses Christ and the Holy Spirit, from whom nothing is hidden, and whose testimony cannot be rejected, who bear such witness to the apostle when they commend him by the power of the signs which they did through him. For since the protection of Christ is so great, and he has shown a special love toward the human race, and by his condescension glorious and immortal rewards have been promised, therefore he grieves for his race according to the flesh, because by their unbelief they have deprived themselves of this everlasting and saving benefit. So he says, “I wished,” not “I wish”; because he knows that it cannot happen that so honourable a member, with no preceding fault, should be cut off from the Christian body; yet he shows his affection and love toward his race.

“Whose is the adoption of sons.” He proves that he grieves rightly when he proclaims the praise of their race; because, though long ago adopted sons, they held the affection and grace of God the Father as nothing. He added more, so as to make others too grieve for them, saying:

“And the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the worship, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and from whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is God over all, blessed for ever. Amen.” He lists such great praises of the nobility and dignity of the race of the Jews and of the promises, to strike all with grief for them; because by not receiving the Saviour they lost the prerogative of the fathers and the merit of the promise, becoming worse than the gentiles, whom formerly they abominated because they were without God; for it is a greater evil to have lost dignity than not to have had it. Meanwhile he says of the Saviour: “Who is God over all, blessed for ever. Amen.” For when no mention is made of the Father’s name and the discourse is about Christ, it cannot be put off that he is called God. For Scripture frequently, for the sake of confessing one God, when it speaks of God the Father and joins the Son to God, calls the Father God and the Son Lord. But if anyone does not think it is said of Christ, “who is God,” let him give the person of whom it is said; for in this place no mention is made of God the Father. But what wonder if in this place he spoke of Christ with open voice as God over all, when in another letter he confirmed this sense with such words, saying: “That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, on earth and under the earth” (Phil 2:10)? These are all things over which Christ is God. For apart from these there is nothing, so that Christ is God over all; nor can every creature bend the knee except to God. Indeed, when the apostle John unknowingly wished to worship an angel as God, he heard from him: “Do not do it, for I am your fellow servant. Worship God” (Rev 19:10). Nor would the Lord certainly have allowed himself to be worshipped unless he were God; otherwise he must be said to have usurped and sinned, which be far from us; since he himself, rebuking the devil, shows that the Lord God is to be worshipped and that he alone is to be served (Matt 4:10). Nothing, then, is prejudiced against God the Father when Christ is worshipped as God; because, though it is said that God alone is to be served, Christ too is served. For he says in another place: “Whoever serves Christ in these things pleases God” (Rom 14:18). What remains, then, but that the Father be believed God and the Son God, and nevertheless both one God? For whether one worships the Father or the Son, he is said to worship one God; and whether one serves the Father or the Son, service is given to one God. There is, then, no separation; because one who worships the Son worships also the Father, and one who serves the Father serves also the Son. And to teach that this confession of deity is without flattery, he put at the end, “Amen,” that is, truly; so as to show Christ in truth as God over all, blessed for ever.

“But the word of God has not failed.” The word of God has not failed, who said: “In Isaac shall your seed be called” (Gen 21:12); that is, what God said would be has happened: that those should not be called the seed of Abraham who were his sons according to the flesh, but those who received the faith through which Isaac was born, renewed in the time of Christ, no longer special but general; so that what Abraham believed about Isaac, these should believe about God and Christ, because the Son of God was born to redeem the salvation of the human race.

“Nor are all who are from Israel Israelites; nor, because they are the seed of Abraham, are all sons; but in Isaac shall your seed be called.” This is what he wants to be understood: that not all are worthy because they are sons of Abraham, but that those are worthy who are sons of the promise, that is, those whom God foreknew would receive his promise, whether from the Jews or from the gentiles; for those who believe are worthy to be called Israelites, that is, seeing God. For certainly all these are sons of Abraham through Isaac; for the whole offspring of the race of the Jews is from Abraham through Isaac. But, as I said, those are truly sons of Abraham who follow the promise which was made in Isaac; and therefore the rest are not to be called sons of Abraham. For Abraham, believing, received Isaac because of faith, because he believed God. In this the mystery of the faith to come was marked out: that those would be brothers of Isaac who had the same faith in which Isaac was born; for Isaac was born of the promise as a type of the Saviour, so that whoever has believed that Christ Jesus was promised to Abraham is a son of Abraham and a brother of Isaac. It was said, then, to Abraham: “In your seed all nations will be blessed” (Gen 22:18); which certainly did not happen in Isaac, but in him who was promised to Abraham in Isaac, who is Christ, in whom all nations that believe are blessed. The other Jews, then, are sons of the flesh, since they are deprived of the promise; nor can they be counted to the merit of Abraham who do not follow the faith through which Abraham proved worthy.

“That is, not those who are sons of the flesh are sons of God, but those who are sons of the promise are reckoned as the seed.” It is clear that sons of the flesh cannot be called sons of God: for these are born of the desire of the flesh, but those spiritually from faith, according to what was promised to Abraham; so that those who believe are reckoned to be the seed.

“For this is the word of promise: At this time I will come, and Sarah will have a son.” This is found in Genesis, and it was prefigured in Christ, so that the future Christ was promised as a son of Abraham, in whom the word of promise would be fulfilled, that in Christ all nations of the earth would be blessed. For when the promise was made to Abraham, and he heard, “In your seed all nations of the earth will be blessed,” Christ was certainly promised to him through the line of Isaac, in whom we see this fulfilled.

“And not only this,” that is, Sarah, “but also Rebecca, having conceived by one act of intercourse, by Isaac our father.” He says, then, that not only did Sarah bear Isaac as a type, but also Rebecca, the wife of Isaac. But the case of Isaac is one thing, that of Jacob and Esau another; for Isaac was born in the figure of the Saviour, but Jacob and Esau bear the type of two peoples, that is, of believers and unbelievers; so that, though they are from one, they are yet different. For in individuals a race too is signified, so that those are said to be of one race who are one in the matter of faith or of faithlessness. For one is signified in many, not through descent of the flesh but through a common cause; so that sons of Jacob may also be said to come from Esau, and sons of Esau may be counted from Jacob. For not because Jacob is praised are all born of him rightly to be called his sons; nor, because Esau displeases, are all of his origin reprobate; since we see that some born of the line of Jacob became faithless, and some from Esau faithful and dear to God. For that many from Jacob are faithless there is no doubt; for all the Jews, believing or not believing, have their origin from him; and that there are good and faithful people from Esau, Job proves, who is of the sons of Esau, fifth from Abraham, that is, a grandson of Esau.

“For when they had not yet been born, nor done anything good or evil, so that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not from works but from the one who calls, it was said that the elder will serve the younger, as it is written: Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” This is found in Malachi. He urges the foreknowledge of God in these cases, because nothing can happen other than what God knew would be. For knowing what each of them would be, he said: This one, who will be the younger, will be worthy; and the one who is elder will be unworthy. He chose one by foreknowledge and rejected the other; and in the one he chose, the purpose of God stands, because nothing can happen other than what he knew and purposed in him, that he would be worthy of salvation; and in the one he rejected the purpose he purposed concerning him stands in the same way, because he will be unworthy. This he does as one who foreknows, not as a respecter of persons; for he condemns no one before he sins, and crowns no one before he conquers. This pertains to the case of the Jews, who claim a prerogative for themselves because they are sons of Abraham. The apostle, however, consoles himself; for he had said that he had continual pain of heart because of the unbelief of those whose was the adoption of sons and the giving of the law, and from whom Christ the Saviour came, as he himself says: “For salvation is from the Jews” (John 4:22). Having examined the law, he found that not all who are from Israel would believe, nor, because they are called sons of Abraham, are all to be called sons of Abraham, as I mentioned above. He lessens his pain, then, finding it foretold long ago that not all would believe; so that he grieves only for those who labour in unbelief through envy. Yet they can believe, which he discloses in what follows. Still, there is no need to grieve much for the unbelievers foretold, because they are not predestined to life; for the foreknowledge of God long ago decreed that these would not be saved. For who mourns one who has long been held dead? But as the gentiles, who before were without God, come in and receive the salvation which those lost, the pain is reawakened; but again, because they are themselves the cause of their own perdition, it is lulled. God, then, foreknowing that they would be of evil will, did not have them in the number of the good; even though the Saviour says to those seventy-two disciples whom he had chosen in a second rank, who afterwards withdrew from him: “Your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:20). But this was on account of justice, because this is just, that each be answered according to his merit. For because they were good they were chosen for the ministry, and their names were written in heaven on account of justice, as I said; but according to foreknowledge they were in the number of the wicked. For God judges according to justice, not according to foreknowledge. Hence he said to Moses too: “If anyone has sinned before me, I will blot him out of my book” (Exod 32:33); so that according to the justice of the judge he seems to be blotted out then, when he sins; but according to foreknowledge he was never in the book of life. Hence the apostle John too says of such: “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would certainly have remained with us” (1 John 2:19). There is no respect of persons in the foreknowledge of God; for foreknowledge is that by which he has defined what each one’s future will will be, in which he will remain, through which he will be either condemned or crowned. Indeed those whom he knows will remain in good are often evil beforehand; and those whom he knows will remain evil are sometimes good at first. Hence complaint ceases, because God is not a respecter of persons (Acts 10:34). For Saul too and Judas Iscariot were good at first, Scripture saying of Saul: “He was a good man, and there was none better than he among the sons of Israel” (1 Sam 9:2); and of Judas Iscariot the apostle Peter says: “Who received the lot of this ministry” (Acts 1:17), that is, of the apostolate, in doing signs and wonders. How, then, would he have received a saving ministry unless he were good? For in the lot was the judgment of God that he was worthy at the time he was chosen, like those seventy-two whom I mentioned above. Hence too Judas, after committing the crime of every evil, moved by repentance, ended his life with a noose. For not every good can be utterly blotted out in anyone, since nature cannot be changed, but the will can; yet not in all respects, because there remains in nature what bears witness to the Creator.

“What, then, shall we say? Is there iniquity with God? By no means.” Because he loves one and hates the other, he adds: “Is there iniquity with God?” Plainly not, but God is just; for he knows what he does, and his judgment is not to be reconsidered. This is found in the prophet Malachi: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated” (Mal 1:2–3). This he now says of judgment; for before he spoke of foreknowledge, that the elder would serve the younger, as by foreknowledge he also condemned Pharaoh, knowing that he would not correct himself; while he chose the apostle Paul when he was persecuting (Acts 9:5), foreknowing certainly that he would be good. This one, then, he came upon before the time, because he was necessary; and Pharaoh he condemned before the future judgment, so that he might be believed to be going to judge.

“For he says to Moses: I will have mercy on whom I have had mercy, and I will show compassion to whom I have shown compassion.” “I will have mercy,” he says, “on whom I have had mercy,” that is, I will have mercy on him to whom I foreknew I would give mercy, knowing that he would turn and remain with me; “and I will show compassion to him to whom I have shown compassion,” that is, I will give mercy to him whom I foreknew would return to me with an upright heart after error. This is to give to him to whom it should be given, and not to give to him to whom it should not be given; so as to call the one he knows will obey, but not call the one he knows will not obey at all. And to call is not to fight but to prick the heart to receive faith.