1 Being justified therefore by faith, let us have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ:
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VERS. 1.-- *From faith.* Above he said, justified freely by grace, lest faith itself be proud. Let not the faithful man say: that I may merit justification, I have faith: for it is answered him: what hast thou that thou hast not received? *Let us have peace,* we who have been reconciled to him through Christ, the minister of grace.
2 By whom also we have access through faith into this grace wherein we stand: and glory in the hope of the glory of the sons of God.
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VERS. 2.-- *Through whom.* He enumerates the benefits that are had from Christ.
3 And not only so: but we glory also in tribulation, knowing that tribulation worketh patience;
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VERS. 3.-- *Tribulation.* That tribulation does not take away patience, charity brings about, which is the proper gift of the Holy Spirit. *Hope.* That is, the certitude of future glory, which to human reason seems empty: but it is confirmed by the testimony of virtue, that is, of patience or of miracles.
4 And patience trial; and trial hope;
5 And hope confoundeth not: because the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost who is given to us.
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VERS. 5.-- *But hope.* Because it is in God, who does not deceive, not in lying man; and the pledge of this hope is the Spirit: for it is read: *Let the fountain of thy water be thine own, and let no stranger have communication with thee*; he himself is the Spirit, whom the wicked cannot receive, and he is charity, which no one can have and be wicked. But a man can have the name of Christ and baptism, receive the body of the Lord, and have the other sacraments, and be wicked. Charity therefore is the proper gift of the Spirit, and the singular fountain. *The charity of God.* Or: God loves us widely: and we have this in our hearts through the Spirit, who makes us understand the charity of God toward us.
6 For why did Christ, when as yet we were weak, according to the time, die for the ungodly?
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VERS. 6.-- *For why.* Since God loves us, or we love him through the Spirit, hope will be fulfilled: because unless it be so, Christ suffered in vain. And this is why Christ [suffered] for the ungodly, that is, for love of the ungodly, or in their stead: for the ungodly, not those who had been so of old and were not so then, but when we were weak in sins. *According to the time,* that is, for three days only, lest thou despair of the power of him whose good will appears in his death: from whom we receive such earnests, in that he gave to the ungodly his own death, who keeps for the just his own life. He died for thee, O mortal man, that thou mayest live with him. He took upon himself our death, that he might give us his own life: he received from thee that whereby he might die for thee. He clothed himself with that wherein he might die for thee: he will clothe thee with that wherein thou mayest live with him. He clothed himself with mortal flesh in the virginity of his mother: he will clothe thee with everlasting life in the equality of the Father.
7 For scarce for a just man will one die: yet perhaps for a good man some one would dare to die.
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VERS. 7.-- *Scarcely.* He says, *for a just man.* Perhaps for a good man: he shows both to be difficult and rare, but the one more difficult and more rare. *For a just man,* etc. A man is just by reason of his exercise, who is also good; but there is also a good man who is not just, that is, one who was born in simplicity: an innocent who has not yet laboured to enlarge himself with goods, such as are the little ones cleansed in baptism; and although the just man is the better, yet the cause of innocence is the more pitiable, rather than that of justice, because justice of this kind is not without severity.
8 But God commendeth his charity towards us: because when as yet we were sinners according to the time.
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VERS. 8.-- *While yet.* Behold, while he hated us according to our sins, he loved us according to that which is his own work: which also he did before the constitution of the world. It had to be said how much he loved us, lest we should despair; and what manner of men we were, lest we should be proud. There was another way also possible to God, who can do all things, but none more fitting for the healing of our misery. For what so lifts us up, and frees us from despair of immortality, as that he made so much of us, that a man should die for us?
9 Christ died for us. Much more therefore, being now justified by his blood, shall we be saved from wrath through him.
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VERS. 9.-- *Much more therefore.* It is a heavier thing to die for sin and to take away sin, than to save those already just and even co-operating. *In his blood.* Because thus the devil is overcome by justice, not by power. By justice, because the devil slew one undeserving, namely Christ: whence also he by right loses the others. Not by power, because the devil is a lover of power, a deserter of justice, wherein men imitate him the more. It pleased God therefore that, conquering not by power but by justice, he should rescue man, wherein man might imitate him: but afterwards, in the resurrection, power followed, because the dead man lived again, never afterwards to die.
10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son: much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.
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VERS. 10.-- *We were enemies.* Not sinners in any manner whatever. *We are reconciled.* Because before we were justly under the power of the devil, our nature being depraved by sin.
11 And not only so: but also we glory in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received reconciliation.
12 Wherefore as by one man sin entered into this world and by sin death: and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned.
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VERS. 12.-- *Therefore.* He said that justice and life are through Christ. And that it can be through him, he intends to prove by a likeness in the lesser case. *Through one.* Namely Adam: the Apostle did not say one Eve, holding to the custom, in that he attributes the succession of human posterity (which succumbs to the sin and the death coming from him) not to the woman, but to the man. For posterity is not wont to be named from the woman, but from the man. Or, because the woman is from the man, and of both there is one flesh. Whether therefore it be said from Eve or from Adam, either pertains to the first man: and by this the Apostle willed original sin to be understood as the sin of propagation, whose chief is Adam, not of imitation, whose chief is the devil; whence: *By the envy of the devil death entered into this world.* *Unto all men.* Because even before the law, when it did not so seem, the law not teaching it, sin was indeed imputed among men, but not with God, as sinners supposed, with whom it was thought that it would go unpunished, since it was not known that he would judge: but when the law was given, they came to know that God cares for human things and judges them. Before, it was not imputed, but death reigned securely, the devil possessing men by reason of the impunity that was believed in, until Moses, through whom the knowledge of the one God returned. Death therefore reigned (as another reading has it), yet not unto all, but unto those like Adam the transgressor, who, God being neglected, served the creature, as he consented to the devil in the place of God. Such were almost all until the law. Very few, like Abraham, served the one God, and over them death did not reign; rather they were kept in hope, to be freed at the coming of Christ.
13 For until the law sin was in the world: but sin was not imputed, when the law was not.
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VERS. 13.-- *Until the law,* etc. That is, because neither could the law take away sin, but increased it, whether the natural law or the written: but it was not imputed, that is, it was not known: yet it reigned until Moses, that is, until the law: because neither could the law itself take away the reign of death, which reigns while it does not allow the guilt of sin to come to eternal life, but drags it to Gehenna. This reign the grace of Christ alone destroyed, even among the ancients: apart from whom it reigned over all: even over those who did not sin by their own proper will, as Adam did, but were held by the original fault, as children are.
14 But death reigned from Adam unto Moses, even over them also who have not sinned, after the similitude of the transgression of Adam, who is a figure of him who was to come.
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VERS. 14.-- *But it reigned.* It was not imputed, but the effect showed it, because bodily death reigned daily through sundry sufferings, at last by dissolution, until Moses, when it was the less seen. *Who is a figure.* Adam is the figure of Christ: because as he is the father of all according to the flesh, so is Christ according to faith; and as from the side of that one Eve was formed, so from the side of this one flowed forth the sacraments, by which the Church is saved. And therefore, as that one could impart to his sons sin and death, so this one imparts to his own his own justice and life; and this one moreover confers more of good upon his own than that one of evil: and therefore he is more able to save than that one to destroy.
15 But not as the offence, so also the gift. For if by the offence of one, many died: much more the grace of God and the gift, by the grace of one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.
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VERS. 15.-- *But not as,* etc. The figure lies in this, that one amends, one sinned; but the case of Adam is not such as the case of Christ: because one is the offence of Adam, by which many, that is, those transgressing in like manner, died; but the grace of Christ is unto more: because it is both unto these, and unto those not transgressing in like manner.
16 And not as it was by one sin, so also is the gift. For judgment indeed was by one unto condemnation: but grace is of many offences unto justification.
17 For if by one man's offence death reigned through one; much more they who receive abundance of grace and of the gift and of justice shall reign in life through one, Jesus Christ.
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VERS. 17.-- *For if.* Death reigned, it does not reign, because they who through the law, etc., *as far as* for there is not a general damnation or justification in all. *Through one it reigned,* etc. Because what strength it had in him, it exercised upon all who came after, of whom he was the matter: just as the fault also, which was his alone, was poured over into all. *Much more,* etc. Because eternally, whereas death reigned in them temporally and with an end.
18 Therefore, as by the offence of one, unto all men to condemnation: so also by the justice of one, unto all men to justification of life.
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VERS. 18.-- *Through the justice of one,* etc. Not that all begotten of Adam are regenerated through Christ, but as no man's carnal generation is except through Adam, so no man's spiritual generation is except through Christ. If there were any begotten apart from Adam, and any regenerated apart from Christ, he would not say *all* and *all.* But as there is no man apart from that generation, so there is no just man apart from this. The same men he afterwards calls *many.*
19 For as by the disobedience of one man, many were made sinners: so also by the obedience of one, many shall be made just.
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VERS. 19.-- *For as,* etc. He determines the offence of one and the justice of one, so that, as that one destroyed by the desert of sin, so this one may be seen to have freed us by the desert of justice. *So also through the one,* etc. He says of the man, not the faith of God or of the Word, lest thou suppose that the just of old were freed in the Word of God alone, that is, by faith in the Word alone without faith in the incarnation.
20 Now the law entered in that sin might abound. And where sin abounded, grace did more abound.
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VERS. 20.-- *But the law,* etc. He had shown that Christ forgives all sins, both original and actual: here he adds that he frees also from the sin of the law, that is, from transgression, so that the Jews are the more beholden to Christ; as if he should say: Justification is first, but the law entered secretly. Here the Apostle says what came about when the law was given, etc., *as far as* God forgave all things. *But the law entered in.* To those born in sins the law is given for the taming of pride, as it were: There is no lack of one to command, but there is a lack of one to fulfil, because he who is born in sin cannot fulfil it: therefore Christ was born, that is, the grace that should heal. *That the offence might abound.* Namely, that he who was in filth might by transgressing grow the fouler; that the middling man might have a schoolmaster, the perfect man a sign, and the hard man might feel the scourge. *It abounded the more.* Because the grace of Christ profits even those whom the devil could not conquer: and because sin reigned for a time, grace unto eternity.
21 That as sin hath reigned to death: so also grace might reign by justice unto life everlasting, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
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VERS. 21.-- *As sin reigned unto death.* He does not add, through one or through Adam: because he treats not only of that which men drew from Adam, but also of that which they added by their own will. But when he says: *Let grace reign,* he adds, *through Jesus Christ,* etc., because through him there is made the remission not only of original sins, but also of voluntary ones.