Commentary on Romans 5.6–5.8

“But the law came in by stealth, so that the trespass might abound. But where sin abounded, grace superabounded, so that, as sin reigned unto death, so also grace may reign through righteousness unto eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” If no one had sinned before the law was given through Moses, Marcion and the other heretics, wishing to accuse the law, would seem to take occasion from these words of the Apostle, as though this had been the reason the law was given, that sin, which had not existed before the law, might abound. But I do not know what time before the law they can find empty of sins. When Cain was killing Abel and polluting the earth with his brother’s blood, so that it was said to him, “Cursed is the earth in your work, which has opened its mouth to receive the blood of your brother,” was sin not abounding? Plainly it was abounding; and that when men did not yet abound. Or then, when Lamech said: “I have killed a man to my wounding and a young man to my bruising. Vengeance was taken for Cain sevenfold, but for Lamech seventy times seven”? In the times of Noah trespass so abounded that, it says, “the Lord, seeing that the wickedness of men was multiplied upon the earth, and that every man had diligently set his heart on wickedness all the days of his life, considered that he had made man upon the earth, and repented in his heart and said: I will blot out man whom I made from the face of the earth, from man to beast, and from creeping things to the birds of heaven, because I repent that I made them.” And again, when it is said: “The earth was corrupted in the sight of the Lord, and the earth was filled with iniquities. And God saw the earth …” [the scan has lost text here] … Or certainly when it is said by God of the Sodomites: “I came down to see whether their iniquities are being consummated according to the cry of the Sodomites”; when they surrounded the house of Lot, attempting the crime of lewdness even against angels? Or perhaps sin was not abounding then, when Pharaoh bound the children of Israel in clay and brick and ordered their newborn to be killed in the river? And certainly the law of Moses had not yet come in by stealth when so great a stain of sins was spreading on the earth.

From this it is gathered that the heretics we spoke of above, or any who think with them that these things were said of the law of Moses, have not managed to touch the apostolic sense even lightly. In this place, rather, it should be understood, as we have often said already, of the law of nature, which is written “not on tablets of stone but on fleshly tablets of the heart, not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God.” This law was so written in the governing part of his heart by him who created man from the beginning that at a fitting time, when the pages of the mind have grown up, or rather, as Scripture has named it, when the fleshly tablets of the heart begin to be opened with the growth of age, it begins to be spread through the inward parts of the conscience and to fill them with reasons. Then, against the precepts which are naturally suggested by a law of this kind, the will of the flesh rises up and suggests other desires; and this is what the Apostle himself named the law in the members, resisting the law of the mind. It is this law of the members, then, that the Apostle seems to have set down in this place, which he says came in by stealth so that sin might abound. For the very word he used seems to me most fully to point to what we are saying. For it is one thing to come in, another to come in by stealth; one thing to lead, another to lead away by stealth; one thing to draw, another to draw away by stealth. For “to come in by stealth” indicates that, when another has come in, something comes in under cover of it. In this the reasoning we set out above plainly shows that under cover of the natural law, which the Apostle named the law of the mind, which consents to the law of God, there arose the law of the members, which, suggesting the desires of the flesh and making man a captive inclined to lusts and pleasures, makes sin abound. Thus, then, “the law came in by stealth so that the trespass might abound.”

“But where sin abounded, grace superabounded.” As we taught in the passages above, where he makes the comparison of each of the things brought in through the transgression, … [the scan has lost text here] … and in the present place, when he had said that sin abounded, he used a most worthy word, by which he overcame “abundance” and brought in “superabundance.” And the grace of Christ superabounded in this, that it not only absolved man from past sins but also fortified him against future ones. For he shows two kingdoms in man: one in which sin reigned unto death, the other in which grace reigns through righteousness unto life. It is grace, then, that has cast out and expelled sin from its kingdom, that is, from our members, and with it death too necessarily went out and was expelled together; so that thus at last grace might claim the kingdom for itself in us through righteousness, and where death had been, eternal life might stand. And this is what the same Apostle says elsewhere: “Therefore let not sin now reign in your mortal body”; and the same elsewhere: “For as you presented your members as weapons of iniquity to sin, so now present your members as weapons of righteousness to God.” There is, then, a great superabundance in this, that where sin and death were, there now are grace and righteousness and eternal life. And all these things are above the rest through our Lord Jesus Christ.

It may be, too, that, just as he said all these good things exist through our Lord Jesus Christ, so he wished those evils to be understood to have come about through the devil, but kept silent about the name of their author, so as to mark the superabundance of grace in all things. For just as Christ is one in substance but is designated as many by his powers and operations (for he is understood to be grace itself, as also righteousness, peace, life, truth, the Word), so perhaps the devil too can often be understood in various significations. For he is to be thought to be the sin which is said to reign; and he is to be believed to be the death of which it is said that “the last enemy, death, will be destroyed.” And he is understood to be perdition, according to what was said by the prophet: “You have become perdition, and you shall not stand for eternal time.” And what the Apostle says, “Therefore let not sin reign in your mortal body,” I think was said rather of him. For he is the author of sin and death and perdition; and consequently he is named from the things he invented. … [the scan has lost text here] … whose yoke “is pleasant, and the burden light”; and not the devil, whose kingdom is heavy. For it is iniquity that sits upon the talent of lead. But where Christ reigns, there grace and righteousness superabound in eternal life.

“What then shall we say? Shall we remain in sin, that grace may abound? Far from it. For we who have died to sin, how shall we still live in it?” Since he had said above, “Where sin abounded, grace superabounded,” he now puts to himself the question arising from this: if the abundance of sin gives birth to a superabundance of grace, then we must sin, so that grace may abound more. But he shows a quick solution of the question when he says, “Far from it”; and at once he added the reason, saying that those in whom grace has abounded are dead to sin. And it is certain that one who is dead to sin cannot be a sinner. He who is dead to sin, then, will not be able to remain in sin.

But so that these things may become clearer, let us inquire what it is to live to sin and what it is to die to sin. As he is said to live to God who lives according to the will of God, so he is said to live to sin who lives according to the will of sin; as the same Apostle points out when he says: “Therefore let not sin 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. And if to do the desires of sin is to live to sin, not to do the desires of sin, nor to obey its will, is to die to sin. Yet the Apostle says that sin has, as it were, a certain seat and throne of its kingdom set up in our body. For this part of our substance is more familiar to it, and it has a kind of friendly fellowship with the pleasures of the flesh; and taking from this the occasions of natural incitement, by a small turning aside it bends the order of nature over the precipice of death.

But so that what we say 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 someone exceeds these at the persuasion of sin, the flesh no longer demands the food and drink that suffices for nature, but luxury and drunkenness. In like manner there is in the flesh a natural incitement by which it demands to be joined to a woman for the sake of continuing descent; but if on this occasion, at the persuasion of sin, one turns aside from the law, and the movements of natural desire are stirred toward what is unlawful, he lives to sin who in each of these obeys not the law of God but the persuasions of sin. If, then, someone, admonished by the death of Christ, who died for the ungodly, repents in all these things, and drives out of his flesh, as the worst of kings, the one reigning there, and makes himself a stranger to his desires and precepts, this man is truly said to have died to sin through the death of Christ. And here I think the author of sin is himself named “sin.” If, then, someone dies to sin, it is certain that he dies through repentance. How, then, will anyone remain in sin so that grace may abound, when grace abounds from this, that someone dies to sin? For if we remain in sin, as is proposed, it is certain that we are not dying to sin but living to it; and in those who live to sin grace cannot abound.

It is asked, indeed, whether grace superabounds only in men in whom sin once abounded, and whether grace superabounds in no one except one in whom sin has abounded; or whether grace can superabound also in some in whom sin has never abounded or existed. And if anyone looks at what the Apostle says, that Christ made peace through his blood not only for the things on earth but also for those in heaven, and at that saying, “that apart from God he might taste death for all,” he will think that there too there was similarly some abundance of sin, so that there might nonetheless be a superabundance of grace. But if you attend to what the reading above mentioned, where sin is said to have entered into this world through one man, and through sin death, and so to have passed through to all, you will say that the things now in hand also proceed from that beginning, so that the Apostle seems to treat only of those things which he set out at the beginning, that is, those which concern men alone.

It must be observed, indeed, how weighed a word the Apostle used in saying, “Shall we remain in sin?” For to remain is not to cease from what has been begun. If anyone does this, it is certain that he has not even received the beginning of conversion. But this sometimes happens: someone does not indeed remain in sin, but when he has ceased, returns again to his vomit and becomes most unhappy, so that after he has driven from himself the kingdom of sin and death and received the kingdom of life and righteousness, he again subjects himself to the dominion of sin and death. And these are what the Apostle calls shipwrecks of faith. Nevertheless, although someone remains in sin, although he continues under the kingdom and power of death, I do not think this kingdom of death is eternal as that of life and righteousness is; especially since … [the scan has lost text here] … And indeed, if the same eternity is supposed for death as for life, death will no longer be the contrary of life but its equal. For the eternal will not be contrary to the eternal, but the same. But now it is certain that death is the contrary of life; it is certain, then, that if life is eternal, death cannot be eternal. Hence the resurrection of the dead also holds a necessary place. For when the death of the soul, which is the last enemy, has been destroyed, this common death too, which we said is the shadow of that one, is necessarily abolished; and then in consequence place will be given to the resurrection of the dead, when the kingdom of death has been destroyed together with death.

But let us not wait for the time when this last enemy is destroyed, we who have once been enlightened and have tasted the heavenly gift and been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come; but let us remain in grace, and not wait to be renewed again to repentance after a fall, crucifying again for ourselves the Son of God and holding him up to contempt; but let the kingdom of righteousness become in us an eternal kingdom; and let us not flee again into the kingdom of death, from which we have been freed and have come to the kingdom of eternal life, so that grace may reign in us through righteousness in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

What he said, then, “We have died to sin,” is what he says elsewhere, that we have been made conformable to the death of Christ, who died to sin once. And when he says “once,” he signifies “wholly.” For Christ died to sin wholly, “who did no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth.”

“Or do you not know that all of us who were baptized in Christ Jesus were baptized in his death? For we were buried with him through baptism into death, so that, as Christ rose from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life.” Observe more carefully the order and sequence of the words. For he compares the death which is through Adam with the life which is through Christ; and he said, “Not as the trespass, so also the gift”; and again after this he says that the law came in by stealth so that sin might abound, but that where sin abounded grace superabounded; and by this he resolves what seemed to be contradictory, and says: “For we who have died to sin, how shall we still live in it?” Now, then, wishing to show by the facts themselves what it is to be dead to sin, he says: “Or do you not know that all of us who were baptized in Christ Jesus were baptized in his death? For we were buried with him through baptism into death”; teaching by this that if someone has first died to sin, he has necessarily been buried with Christ in baptism; but if someone does not die to sin beforehand, he cannot be buried with Christ. For no one is ever buried alive. And if he is not buried with Christ, he is not lawfully baptized.

But about the meaning of baptism we spoke, according to our strength, what could occur to us, or rather what the Lord granted, when we were expounding the Gospel according to John, when we came to the place where John says of Jesus, “He will baptize you in the Holy Spirit,” and again where the Savior himself says, “Unless someone is born again of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God”; where we also tried to open more deeply the force of the word in which it is said, “Unless someone is born again.” For what we Latins have as “again” (denuo), the Greeks say anōthen, a word which signifies both “again” and “from above.” In this place, then, since he who is baptized by Jesus is baptized in the Holy Spirit, it is not said “again” in such a way that it should not rather be understood “from above.” For we say “again” when the same things that have been done are repeated; but here the same birth is not repeated or done over, but, this earthly one having been left behind, a new birth is received from above. And therefore we should more rightly read in the Gospel: “Unless someone has been born from above, he cannot enter the kingdom of God”; for this is to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. To this reasoning, so as to confirm that baptism is from above, the waters too which are above the heavens and praise the name of the Lord are not unfittingly joined to the Holy Spirit. And although, according to the type handed down to the churches, we have all been baptized in these visible waters and with visible chrism, yet he who has died to sin and is truly baptized in the death of Christ and is buried with him through baptism into death, he is truly baptized in the Holy Spirit and with the water from above.

And look still more carefully at the sequence of the mystical order. You must first die to sin so that you may be buried with Christ. For burial is owed to the dead. For if you still live to sin, you cannot be buried with Christ nor laid in his new tomb, because your old man lives and cannot walk in newness of life. For this reason it was the Holy Spirit’s care to hand down through the Scriptures both that the tomb in which Jesus was buried was new and that he was wrapped in a clean linen cloth, so that everyone who wishes to be buried with Christ through baptism may know that nothing of oldness is to be brought to the new tomb, nothing of uncleanness to the clean linen. This, then, is the blessed death of which the Apostle says that we always carry about the death of Jesus Christ in our body; and again: “I die daily.” And when he says, “All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or this world or life or death,” he counts in this death by which we die to sin and are buried with Christ.

But someone may ask in these places why the Apostle, speaking of our baptism and of Jesus, said, “We were buried with him through baptism into death”; and again elsewhere: “If we die with him, we shall also live with him”; and again: “If we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him”; and nowhere said, “We were baptized with Christ,” although, as death is compared with death and life with life, so it would seem that baptism ought to be compared with baptism. But see how much caution there is in the letters of the Apostle; for he says: “All of us who were baptized in Christ Jesus.” He says, then, that our baptism is in Christ Jesus. But Christ himself is related to have been baptized by John, not with the baptism that is in Christ, but with that which is in the law. For so he himself says to John: “Let it be so now; for thus it is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness.” In this he shows that the baptism of John was a fulfilment of the old things, not a beginning of the new. Indeed, it is related in the Acts of the Apostles that some disciples who had been baptized with the baptism of John were rebaptized, by the judgment of the apostles, in the name of the Lord Jesus. “All of us, then, who were baptized in Christ Jesus were baptized in his death.”

You may perhaps ask this too: since the Lord himself told the disciples to baptize all nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, why has the Apostle here taken the name of Christ alone in baptism, saying, “All of us who were baptized in Christ,” when certainly baptism is not held lawful unless under the name of the Trinity? But see the prudence of Paul: since in the present place he wished to discuss not so much the meaning of baptism as the death of Christ, … [the scan has lost text here] … name the Father or the Holy Spirit. For “the Word became flesh,” and rightly, where there is flesh, there death is treated. Nor was it fitting for him to say: “All of us who were baptized in the name of the Father, or in the name of the Holy Spirit, were baptized in his death.” Hence from this place the Apostle’s custom in the other places too must be observed, that when he takes something from the Scriptures he does not always take the whole text of the words as it stands in its place, but only as much as the present matter requires; as also in the present saying, since he wished to teach about the death of Christ, it sufficed him to say: “All of us who were baptized in Christ were baptized in his death.”

And it seems to me that the Apostle did not idly set at the head of this passage what he says, “Or do you not know?” By this he shows that then, that is, in the times of the apostles, it was not, as we now see done, only the type of the mysteries that was handed on to those who were baptized, but their power and meaning; and as to people who knew and had been taught that those who are baptized are baptized in the death of Christ and buried with him through baptism into death; and that, 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. This the Apostle writes.

Perhaps this too may still be asked in the present passage: if we have died to sin and been buried with Christ and have risen with him, it will seem necessary to show according to this pattern how we too have been buried with him three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. And see whether we can make three days buried with Christ, when we receive the full knowledge of the Trinity: for the Father is light, and in the light, who is the Son, we see the light, the Holy Spirit. And we make three nights too, when we destroy the father of darkness and ignorance together with the lie which is born of him, for he “is a liar, as also his father,” and “when he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own”; and in the third place we destroy the spirit of error, which inspires false prophets to say, “Thus says the Lord,” whom the Lord has not sent. These we destroy and trample, if we have been buried with Christ, according also to what he himself says: “Behold, I have given you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions and upon all …” [the scan has lost text here] … to the truth. These things meanwhile have been able to occur to us in the present place. But if anyone has thought of something better, let him not be reluctant to set these aside and receive that.

Yet this is what is gathered from these words of the Apostle by a deeper understanding: that, as no living man can be buried with the dead, so no one who still lives to sin can be buried in baptism with Christ, who died to sin; and therefore those who hasten to baptism ought first to take care to die to sin beforehand, and so they may be buried with Christ through baptism, and say themselves: “Always carrying about the death of Jesus Christ in our body, so that the life of Jesus Christ too may be manifested in our mortal flesh.” And how the life of Jesus Christ is manifested in the body Paul himself shows when he says: “I live, yet no longer I, but Christ lives in me.” This is the same as what the apostle John writes in his letter, when he says: “Every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ come in the flesh is from God.” In this, certainly, it is not he who has pronounced these syllables and uttered them in the common confession who will be seen to be led by the Spirit of God, but he who has so shaped his life and so borne the fruits of works that he has shown, by the very devotion of his works and thoughts, that Christ has come in the flesh, and has died to sin and lives to God.

Now that we have opened, according to our strength, what it is to be buried with Christ, let us see also what he says: “so that, as Christ rose from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life.” If we have been buried with Christ according to what we said above, that is, according to our having died to sin, then certainly, as Christ rises from the dead, we too shall rise together with him; and as he ascends to the heavens, we shall ascend together with him; and as 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 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 … [the scan has lost text here] … and put on the new, who has been created according to God, and who is being renewed in the knowledge of God according to the image of him who created him.

For do not think that a renewal of life which is said to have been made once is sufficient; but always, and daily, if one may say so, the newness itself must be renewed. For so the Apostle says: “For even if our outer man is being corrupted, yet the inner is being renewed from day to day.” For as the old man is always growing old and is made older from day to day, so this new man too is always being renewed, and there is never a time when his renewal does not increase. Look, indeed, at those who make progress in faith and daily shine forth in virtues: how they always add better things to good works and acquire more honorable things to honorable acts; how they grow rich in understanding, knowledge, and wisdom; and things that before seemed less plain to understand they afterward see open and clear. And see whether you would not say, from the facts themselves, that such a man is renewed daily; just as, on the contrary, as we said, if someone begins to be made old, he will advance to the worse and will daily be found older and worse than himself. Let us walk, then, in newness of life, showing ourselves to him who raised us with Christ daily new and, so to speak, more beautiful, gathering the beauty of our face in Christ as in a mirror, and, beholding the glory of the Lord in him, being transformed into the same image; because Christ, rising from the dead, from earthly lowliness to the glory of the Father … [the scan has lost text here] …

“Let us walk in newness of life”: see whether perhaps it shows that mystery, that so long as someone 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 this progress come at some time to that place where one must stand. So, indeed, Jesus Christ appeared standing at the right hand of power to the first martyr Stephen, who had already come to the degree of perfection; and to Moses, who also after much progress had come to perfection, the Lord says: “But you, stand here with me.” And Paul, when he knew the consummation of perfection in himself, says: “I have finished the course.” But to those who thought themselves perfect, and yet were not, he says: “Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.” But to the imperfect and those still at the beginning it is said that they should walk after the Lord their God; and of others it is said: “I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint on the way.”