Commentary on Romans 4.6–4.7

"Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to what was said to him: So shall your offspring be, like the stars of heaven and the sand of the sea. And he was not weakened in faith, nor did he consider his own body already as good as dead, since he was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah's womb. Nor did he waver in distrust at the promise of God, but he was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and most fully knowing that whatever he has promised he is able also to do. Therefore it was also counted to him as righteousness." It seems to me that when the Apostle said "against hope," he had in view what is reported in Genesis that Abraham said to the Lord: "Lord, Master, what will you give me? I am left without sons; and this son of Masek, my home-born slave, is Damascus Eliezer." And Abraham said: "Since you have not given me offspring, this home-born slave of mine will be my heir." From these words, certainly, Abraham is understood to have despaired of having sons. And when he said, "believed in hope," he gathers, I think, that hope was given him again from where it is written: "And the voice of the Lord came to him, saying: This one will not be your heir; but he who comes forth from you, he will be your heir. And he brought him outside and said to him: Look up at the sky and count the stars, if you can number them. And he said to him: So shall your offspring be. And he believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness." From these words, then, both his despair first, and afterward the hope given him by the promises of God, are declared. And because he believed him, what the Apostle now sets forth is written of him, that it was counted to him as righteousness.

And rightly, and according to his usual custom when he treats of faith, the Apostle joins hope too, knowing that hope clings inseparably to faith, as the same Apostle also teaches in the Epistle to the Hebrews, saying: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the proof of things not seen." And again in this same Epistle to the Romans he says later: "For in hope we have been saved. But hope that is seen is not hope. For what one sees, why does he hope for? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience." What he says, "In hope we have been saved," is the same as what he says elsewhere, that "we have been saved through faith"; and "Your faith has saved you"; and "Let it be done to you according to your faith." These things are certainly said to those who, believing in Jesus, had the hope that they could be cured by him. And just as Abraham against hope believed in hope, so all who through faith are sons of Abraham believe against hope in hope … concerning each of the things they believe, whether concerning the resurrection of the dead or concerning the inheritance of the kingdom of heaven. For these things, as far as human nature is concerned, seem against hope; but as far as the power of God is concerned, they are believed in hope, after the example of Abraham, who believed that whatever God has promised he is able also to do: if only faith, hope, and love remain in those who believe. And I think that the first beginnings of salvation and its very foundations are faith; the progress and growth of the building is hope; but the perfection and summit of the whole work is love; and therefore love is said to be the greatest of all.

Abraham, then, "against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations," who would be like the stars of heaven not only in multitude but also in brightness; and believing faithfully the one who promised, "he was not," it says, "weakened in faith." When he says, "he was not weakened in faith," he seems to me to show that there is a certain weakness in faith. And if there is weakness, there is without doubt also health, as he shows in other places too, when he says: "Rebuke them sharply, that they may be healthy in the faith." Blessed, then, is one who is not weak in faith. But if anyone is weak, the Apostle describes his care when he says: "Welcome one who is weak in faith, not for disputes over opinions. For one believes he may eat anything; but let him who is weak eat vegetables." By this he certainly indicates that vegetables of the word should be offered to one who is weak in faith, lest the full teaching of faith be forced on those who hesitate in it and are, in a way, sick. But that faith is called healthy which is perfect and lacks nothing; and it is the faith that believes it may eat everything, that is, that can receive everything; one who has it is called spiritual, and judges all things, and can be scandalized by no word. Hence it clearly appears that there are certain increases and progressions in faith, and that some have a small portion of faith, others a great one, and others have all faith. Hence the Apostle too said: "If I have all faith, so as to move mountains." And in the Gospels the disciples say to the Lord, as people in whom full faith was not yet present: "Increase our faith."

Consider, indeed, whether according to what we say of faith we can likewise understand about the increases of love too, so that we say also of love, as he said, "If I have all faith," "If I have all love": and that one has all love who has all those things that are proper to love, as the Apostle says: "Love is patient, is kind, is not puffed up, is not jealous, is not ambitious, does not act wrongly, is not provoked; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things," and the other things like these. If anyone has these, it seems to me rightly said that he has all love: which love without doubt consists of these several parts mentioned above by the Apostle. And I think the same can be said of mercy and piety and the other virtues. And perhaps through these several things, just as it was said of faith that faith was counted as righteousness, so it can be said of love too, that love was counted to him as righteousness, or piety, or mercy.

But let us now see what follows. "And he was not," it says, "weakened in faith, nor did he consider his own body already as good as dead, since he was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah's womb; nor did he waver in distrust at the promise of God, but he was strengthened in faith." As far as the simple understanding is concerned, he has brought forward an evident reason: that Abraham, when he heard that offspring was promised him by God, did not look to the dead strength of a hundred-year-old body, from which certainly no succession at all could be hoped; but looking at the power of the one who promised, he believed that nothing was difficult in what the Almighty promised. "But he gave," it says, "glory to God," understanding that it was the gift of God alone where the laws of human fertility had ceased. Rightly, then, he gave glory to God, who had been deserted by the aids of nature. These things, as I said, will seem sufficiently said as far as the simple understanding is concerned.

But if anyone objects to us: How can Abraham, placed at the age of a hundred years, be said to have a body as good as dead, when, after he had received Isaac, and Sarah had died, who had conceived him at ninety and had lived a hundred and twenty-seven years, and even after Isaac, when he had become forty years old, had taken Rebecca, after all these things it is written: "And Abraham again took a wife whose name was Keturah; and she bore him Zimran and Jokshan and Medan and Midian and Ishbak and Shuah"? How, then, will he seem to have a body as good as dead, who, having become much older than he then was, could both take a wife and beget six children? So that we may fittingly exclude these objections, let us carry over the exposition of "the body as good as dead" to another sense, so as to say that Abraham was as good as dead not by the weakness of age, but according to that virtue which the saints, first fulfilling it in themselves, also admonish others to have, saying: "Put to death your members which are on earth." For I think it absurd if we do not believe that this good which Paul had in himself (for he would not command others what he himself had not done), if, I say, we do not believe that Abraham the patriarch, whom the Apostle even calls his father, had this good which Paul had. There was, then, in him too this putting to death of the members: licentiousness was not roused, he did not burn with lust, like those of whom the Apostle says: "It is better to marry than to burn." The same was also in Sarah, since "the ways of women had ceased to be with Sarah." For there was not in her womanly wantonness or the laxity of incontinence, nor were they hurled unwillingly into the use of lust; but when they hear of so great a hope of posterity, and of the glory of their offspring, to be made equal to heaven and the stars, when they hear these things, they do not look to their own goods, to the grace of continence, to the putting to death of their members, but they count all these things, which they reckoned gains for themselves, as losses, that they may gain Christ.

But perhaps you think I have erred, because, when I ought to have spoken of the posterity of Abraham and his offspring, I spoke of Christ. We do not err, but speak with the Apostle. For he himself interprets these things as said of Christ, when he says: "It is written: To you I will give this land, and to your offspring. He did not say, And to offsprings, as of many, but, To your offspring, as of one, who is Christ." You see, then, how the Apostle teaches us that the Lord spoke to Abraham in such a way that he should understand that Christ was to be perceived in his offspring; and for this reason I think the Apostle added and said: "giving glory to God." For Abraham could not have offered so much glory about the birth of Isaac as he could give to God if he understood that Christ would be born of his body, already as good as dead and purged of vices. And you too, if you put to death your members which are on earth, if, having cast off all the heat of lust, you keep your body as good as dead and subject to no vices, can also beget the best fruits from it; you can beget Isaac, which means joy, and this is the first fruit of the Spirit; your offspring, that is, your works, can ascend to heaven and be declared works of light and be compared to the brilliance and splendor of the stars, so that when the day of resurrection has come, you may differ in brightness as star from star. I say still more: if you are so pure in mind, so holy in body, so spotless in acts, you can beget even Christ himself, according to him who said: "My little children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you." And so the Lord himself says of himself: "Whoever does the will of my Father who is in heaven, he is my brother and sister and mother." Who, then, will be the mother of Jesus, except one whose womb is as good as dead, so that at last she may bring forth children of chastity, like the woman of whom the Apostle says: "But she will be saved through the bearing of children, if she remains in faith and chastity"? Hence I think it was fittingly added for these: "And it was counted to him as righteousness." For how would it not be counted as righteousness to one who held perfection not only in faith but in all the virtues?

"But it was not written for his sake alone, that it was counted to him as righteousness, but also for ours, to whom it will be counted, who believe in him who raised Jesus Christ our Lord from the dead, who was handed over for our offenses and rose again for our justification." In this place, when he says, "not for his sake alone," it is to be understood as "about him"; and again when he says, "but also for ours," that is, "about us too." For it is clear that Moses did not write what is said, "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness," so that Abraham might read it, who had certainly died long before, but so that we might take progress in faith from reading of this kind, understanding that if we too believe God as he believed, faith will be counted to us too as righteousness, who believe in him who raised Jesus Christ our Lord from the dead.

I should like indeed to ask why it is that in this place the Apostle, naming God, in whom we believe and in whom Abraham believed, did not say, "who believe in God Most High," or "who believe in him who made heaven and earth," or "in him who made the angels and the other powers of heavenly glory," but said, "who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead." Let us ask, then, for what reason this title of the Lord's resurrection is taken up in comparison with the faith of Abraham. Had Abraham believed in him who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead, when Jesus had not yet then been raised from the dead? I should like, then, to consider what seemed good to Paul in promising us that, just as faith was counted as righteousness to Abraham when he believed, so it will be counted to us too, who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. In this, according to the smallness of my understanding, I notice this: that it is much more magnificent in the praises of God to have raised Jesus our Lord from the dead than to have made heaven and earth, created the angels, and founded the heavenly powers. For that was to make the things that were not; this was to repair the things that had perished. That was to establish things not yet destroyed; this was to restore things already destroyed. That, finally, was accomplished by command; this by suffering.

But the form and image of this so great and so magnificent mystery had gone before in the faith of Abraham. For when he was commanded to offer his only son, he had believed that God was able even to raise him from the dead; he had believed also that this was being done not for Isaac alone, but that the full truth of the sacrament was being kept for his offspring, which is Christ. That is why he offered his only son rejoicing, because he was thinking in him not of the destruction of his posterity but of the restoration of the world and the renewal of the whole creation, which has been restored through the resurrection of the Lord. And therefore the Lord says of him: "Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day; and he saw it and was glad." In this way, then, the comparison of the faith of Abraham and of those who believe in him who raised the Lord Jesus will be seen to be fittingly made: because what he believed would be, is believed by us to have been done. At the same time this too is shown, which does not please the heretics: that the God whom Abraham believed, and who counted his faith as righteousness, is the very one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead; and no room is left for one God of the law to be understood and another the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

But let us ask further, since there are very many things that Christ is said to be (for he is called wisdom, and power, and righteousness, and word, and truth, and life), why the Apostle makes mention especially of his resurrection in our faith. The same Apostle says in other places that God raised us up together with Christ and made us sit with him in the heavenly places. This, then, is what he admonishes: if you believe that Christ has risen from the dead, believe that you yourselves too have risen together with him; and if you believe that he sits at the right hand of the Father in heaven, believe that you yourselves too are now placed not in earthly but in heavenly places; and if you believe that you have died with Christ, believe that you will also live with him; and if you believe that Christ died to sin and lives to God, you too be dead to sin and live to God. And this is what he protests by apostolic authority, saying: "If you have risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God; set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things on earth": because one who does these things shows that he believes in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, and to him faith is truly counted as righteousness. For it is not possible for righteousness to be counted to one who has in himself something of unrighteousness, even if he believes in him who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead. For unrighteousness can have nothing in common with righteousness, just as light cannot with darkness, nor life with death. So, then, to those who believe in Christ yet do not put off the old man with his unrighteous acts, faith cannot be counted as righteousness. In a similar way we can say that, just as righteousness cannot be counted to the unrighteous, so neither can chastity be counted to the unchaste, nor equity to the unjust, nor generosity to the greedy, nor piety to the impious, until he casts off the old garments of the vices and puts on the new man, who has been created according to God and is renewed in the knowledge of God according to the image of him who created him.

For this reason he also adds next and says of the Lord Jesus: "Who was handed over," he says, "for our sins and rose again for our justification"; to show that we too ought to abhor and cast away the things for which Christ was handed over. For if we believe that he was handed over for our sins, how is not every sin held alien and hostile to us, for which our Redeemer is recorded to have been handed over to death? For if any fellowship or friendship with sin comes about for us again, we show that we count the death of Christ Jesus as nothing, embracing and following the things that he fought and conquered. And the Apostle, joining all this together, called it, as it were, the very body of sin, the garment of the old man, which he urges those who believe in him who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead to put off, so that, having cast off the garment of unrighteousness, they may put on the Lord Jesus, who is the true garment of righteousness, so that faith may rightly be counted as righteousness to believers. He was handed over, then, for our sins and rose again for our justification. For if we have risen with Christ, who is righteousness, and walk in newness of life, and live according to righteousness, Christ has risen for us for our justification. But if we have not yet put off the old man with his acts, but live in unrighteousness, I dare to say that Christ has not yet risen for us for justification, nor was he handed over for our sins. For if I believe this, how do I love that for which he endured death? If I believe that he rose for my justification, how does unrighteousness please me? Christ, then, justifies only those who have taken up newness of life after the example of his resurrection, and cast off the old garments of unrighteousness and iniquity as the cause of death.

But let them be willing to ask whether the Apostle says only of this saying, "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness," that it was written not for Abraham's sake alone but also for ours. Do you think that this word alone, out of all that are said of Abraham, was written not only for his sake but also for ours? Or will some others also seem written not only for his sake but also for ours? Or rather are all things said of him said not of him alone but also for us? And not only of Abraham, but see whether perhaps these same things should be taken likewise of Isaac too, so that what is written of him looks not to him alone but to us as well; and likewise of Jacob and the other patriarchs. For what reason will there seem to be that the things written of Abraham are said to pertain to us too, but not in a similar way those of Isaac, and of Jacob, and of Judah, or of Joseph, and the rest? And if there seems to be no reason why this should be taken so of one patriarch and not also of the others, it will follow that all the things written are seen to have been written not only for those who were then but also for us. In this I am especially persuaded by that word of the Gospel in which our Lord and Savior answered those who had said to him, "Abraham is our father": "If you were the offspring of Abraham, you would surely do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from my Father; this Abraham did not do." By this he certainly shows that those who do the works of Abraham are sons of Abraham, and that for them were written the things written of Abraham.

Here now it is for a wise man, enlightened by God, to look into and perceive how each work that is written of Abraham may be seen fulfilled in himself: for example, what was said to him, "Go out from your land and from your kindred and from your father's house, and come into the land that I will show you"; how one who wishes to be seen to be of the offspring of Abraham by his works ought to obey these things, which were certainly written not for him alone but also for … [as the Lord had spoken to him]; how this too may be seen written not only for Abraham but also for us, that we may walk according to all that the Lord has spoken. And likewise about Isaac, or the other things written in a similar way, how they too may be seen to pertain to us. But it is not for the present occasion to bring everything forward and to discuss each thing, in what order the things said or done in the divine Scriptures of Abraham or the other saints are fulfilled also in us who believe in him whom Abraham believed; but, as far as the need of the present work allows, we have opened a way along which one who desires to be trained in the Scriptures may walk more widely. Thus far the discussion has run on the principle of the faith that was counted as righteousness, on the observance of the different laws, and on the difference of uncircumcision and circumcision. Now let us see how those who have been justified by faith and not by works are formed by the Apostle.