Romans 3

Before the first verse

VERSE 1.-- *What then more.* He objects to himself what he sees can be objected, that he may resolve it. Since a Jew becomes a Gentile, and conversely. What then is there more for the Jew, who is called God's peculiar people, than for the Gentile who is called an unclean dog? or what has he gained from circumcision? To this he answers: It availed indeed of old, but they are not on that account more worthy in the faith; and this is: There is much more for the Jew according to his former state than for the Gentile, and this in every way. Every way is either in the administration of temporal things, or in the unlocking of spiritual things; and in both of these God did many things for the Jews which he did not for the Gentiles: and so according to their former state they were more worthy. VERSE 2.-- *First indeed,* etc. As if: That I may pass over other lesser matters concerning temporal things, I set this first and chief, that the oracles of the Lord, that is, the law and the prophets, were entrusted to them as to friends: through which they might understand the redemption to come. But thou wilt say: Nothing more was on that account done for them, because they did not believe the oracles, so that some of them should receive the promised Christ. To which it is answered: Yet it did not on that account profit believers less; and this is: For although some did not believe, yet faith has not on that account been made void. VERSE 3.-- *Shall their unbelief.* Not, he says, because some were unwilling to believe, shall it be prejudicial to the rest of the Jews, so that they be said unworthy to receive what God promised to the faithful, since indeed the promise was so made that it should profit believers. *Faith.* We understand it to be that which God has with those to whom he entrusts his own oracles, or that by which some believe God.VERSE 4.-- *But every.* He adds this, that it may appear that the promise of God was made and fulfilled, not on account of any worthiness of man, but on account of mercy: that grace may be given to the unworthy, and that grace may be the more commendable. But God is called truthful, that is, unchangeable, both in essence and in promise. Man a liar, that is, not having even the true being of nature, and flowing away through sins. *Every man a liar.* Who denies that God has fulfilled his promises: this above all the Jew, whom God overcomes when he gives what he promised. *Every man.* The Jew also, lest he seem more worthy in the new state than the Gentile. VERSE 5.-- *But if our iniquity.* He said that God is truthful and every man a liar, and that he gives good things to the unworthy, wherein his justice and grace appear the more commendable: whence the carnal man, saying that God uses evils as an instrument for his own glory, brings the matter to this, that he calls God unjust who punishes sins which profit him. This he removes, saying: *Is God unjust.* God is truthful and man a liar. But if this is so, and thus our iniquity commends the justice of God, what seems to follow? That God is unjust. But is God unjust who brings evils? VERSE 7.-- *For if the truth.* The removal of God's injustice having been interposed, the Apostle returns to the proof of the carnal man striving to prove that God is unjust if he punishes the wicked, because if he is thereby the more glorious: why am I even now, and not only in the time to come, judged as a sinner, which I am not? Or: *Still,* that is, after conversion, after he gave gifts to one unworthy. For when before I deserved ill by my own doings, he was not the more glorious: as if he should say: What could be seen before remission ought not to be seen after, namely that I am to be judged a sinner; as if he should say: It is certain that the truth of forgiving would not have abounded unto glory unless I had sinned. VERSE 8.-- *And not as.* As if: And if thou art that, that the truth of God abounds in sin, why. do we not do evils that good things may come, as it is laid to our charge that we think this (which is blasphemy) and even preach it, on the occasion of words of this kind: where sin abounded, grace did more abound? Or: Let it be joined more closely with the preceding letter than before. As if: How shall God judge? As if: Not rightly, because he would not even now justly judge me as a sinner, which I am not, and truly not. VERSE 9.-- *What then.* As if: He did more for the Jew in the former state; and, because he fulfilled good things for them not out of any merit of theirs. *What then? do we excel them?* Truly, since every man is a liar; therefore we Jews do not excel the Gentiles in this state of grace, although we were more excellent in the former state in every way. *By no means.* Because there is no respect of persons with God, *but in every nation he that feareth God is acceptable to him*. VERSE 11.-- *There is none that seeketh.* From his works they were able to seek and to find that Christ was God.VERSE 12.-- *All have turned aside,* etc. He does not mean the whole people utterly, but one part of the people. For there are always two peoples in one people: whence Jeremiah: *Then all rose up against the prophet of the Lord, wishing to kill him.* And he added: *But all the people did not permit them*. He said that all rose up, that is, the wicked; that all the people did not permit it, namely the good. *There is none, even to one.* For Christ alone does good in himself and in his own. VERSE 15.-- *Their feet are swift.* Of whom the Lord says: *Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets*. And again: *An evil and adulterous generation*. And of whom Isaiah says: *Woe to the sinful nation, to the wicked seed*, etc.VERSE 16.-- *Destruction.* They do such things as bring them to be crushed in this world, through Titus and Vespasian, and in the world to come they shall be unhappy, punished in soul and body. VERSE 19.-- *In the law.* The Old Testament is sometimes called the law generally, as there: *The Lord opened the understanding of the disciples, that they might understand concerning him the things that were written in the law and the prophets and the psalms*. Sometimes the psalms are called the law. As the Lord says: *It is written in your law. I said: You are gods and all of you sons of the Most High* And elsewhere: *That the word may be fulfilled which is written in their law: Because they hated me without cause*. *That every mouth may be stopped,* even that of the Jews boasting from their own glory that they came to the faith for their own merits; or let the mouth of the Jews be so stopped, as above that of the Gentiles who boasted of their good nature. VERSE 20.-- *Because by the works.* As he took away glorying from circumcision, so he wishes to do concerning the rest of the works of the law. And it is a new sentence, although it is joined to what precedes by: *Because by the works of the law,* etc. The works of the law are called those which were instituted and bounded in the law, as were the ceremonial and figurative ones, which never had power to cleanse the conscience, even if they were done with charity and devotion, because they were not instituted unto justification, but unto the signifying of things to come and the showing of the weakness of sin, because the law did not come to take away sins, but to show and to punish them. *No flesh shall be justified,* etc. Understand it according to the ceremonial precepts, not the moral, which assuredly justify and are brought to completion in the Gospel. *Before him.* Who sees the inmost things, namely whether a thing is done from love of justice or from fear of punishment, which men do not see. *For by the law.* Here he begins concerning the law, that he may show that justice is not from it. *For by the law is the knowledge of sin.* He says this, not because sins were unknown before, but because it was known through the law that all of them would not go unpunished with God. Certain sins were known before the law, as when before Pharaoh Joseph, accused of the crime of adultery, was sent into prison. And his brothers said: *Deservedly do we suffer these things, because we sinned against our brother*. But certain things were known through the law which before were unknown, as concupiscence and original sin. Certain things also were known through the law to be graver than they were before thought. VERSE 21.-- *Being witnessed,* etc. Because the law figured it by many sacraments, by that very thing it bears witness to the justice of God, because in the law no one is justified. The prophets bear witness, by foretelling that which the coming of Christ fulfilled. VERSE 22.-- *But the justice,* etc. Not that by which he himself is essentially just, but that with which he clothes the ungodly, when in mercy he makes a believer out of an unbeliever. And that is called the justice of God which would more properly seem to be called mercy, because it has its origin from the promise: and when what God promised is rendered, it is called the justice of God. For it is justice because what was promised has been paid; and when he receives those who flee to him it is called the justice of God, because not to receive them is iniquity. VERSE 23.-- *They need the glory,* that is, the indulgence and pardon of sins. VERSE 24.-- *Justified freely.* Not through the law, not through our own will, but through the grace of Christ; yet not that it is done without our will. But our will is shown to be weak through the law: that grace may heal the will, and the healed will may fulfil the law, not being set under the law nor needing the law. *Freely,* that is, with no preceding merits of works, otherwise grace is now not grace, since it is given for this reason, not because we have done good works, but that we may be able to do them. VERSE 25.-- *God hath set forth,* etc. To this end, that he might show himself truthful in his promises, which showing was necessary, not only for the remission of present sins, but also of those which went before under the forbearance of God, God, that is, enduring and not punishing; and then that he might show in this time of Christ what could be done at no other time, that he should be just and the justifier of him who is of the faith of Jesus. *Faith in his blood,* that is, the faith of his passion, or through faith and through the passion: for neither avails without the other. *For the remission.* The effect of remission is twofold, namely to be without punishment and to enjoy glory. The first the just had before the death of Christ, because they did not feel actual punishment. But after the death of Christ the glory of the divine vision was given them, from which they were being deferred while God bore with their offences. VERSE 26.-- *In the forbearance.* God patiently bore with the sins of those who were before the law and under the law: he did not punish, nor did he remit them so that they should have glory, until he came who should absolve by the price of his blood the offences both of those who went before and of those who followed. VERSE 27.-- *It is excluded.* Whether he has meant the praiseworthy glorifying which is in the Lord, and that as excluded, that is, not driven out so that it should depart, but pressed out so that it should stand forth. Whence silversmiths also are called *exclusores*; whence the Psalmist: *Ut excludantur ii*, that they may be shut out, who are proved, etc. Or whether he wished to mention the vicious glorying, he says that it is excluded by the law of faith, that is, cast out and thrown away, because by the law of faith each one knows that if he lives well in anything, he has it by the grace of God.