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Rom 6:1-2. What then shall we say? Shall we remain in sin that grace may abound? True doctrine builds up the children of God; but the grace of the sons of Adam—that is, of sinners—when they abuse that doctrine, by accident nourishes pride and sloth in them. For they say, not so much with their tongue as by their deeds, “Let us remain in sin that grace may abound,” as though human reasoning presumed that such dispositions and affections toward sin were not impediments to grace. For we who have died to sin, how shall we still live in it? That is, if grace has accomplished this in us—that we should die to sin—what else do we do, if we live in it, except show ourselves ungrateful to grace? For the one who praises the benefit of medicine does not say that diseases and wounds are useful because of which medicine heals man; rather, the more medicine is praised with great commendation, the more wounds and diseases are condemned and abhorred, from which it delivers him. Thus praise and proclamation of grace is condemnation and denunciation of sins (cf. St. Augustine, De Spiritu et Littera c. 6).
It had to be shown to man how foul his sickness was, against whose iniquity even a holy and good commandment availed nothing—indeed, iniquity was increased rather than diminished, since the Law entered that the offense might abound—so that, convicted and confounded in this way, he might see that not only a teacher was necessary for him, but also a helper, namely God, by whom his steps might be directed lest all iniquity dominate him; and by fleeing to the help of divine mercy he might be healed, so that where sin abounded, grace might abound all the more, not by the merit of the sinner, but by the aid of the One who helps.
In the doctrine of grace, therefore, keep the middle path, so that you incline neither to the right nor to the left. Whoever says, as St. Augustine notes, “My will is sufficient for me to do good works,” inclines to the right; but those who think that a good life is to be abandoned when they hear grace preached—so that it may be believed and understood that grace itself makes good wills out of bad ones, and also preserves those it has made—therefore say, “Let us do evil that good may come” (Romans 3:8), incline to the left. Hence it was said to you: Do not turn aside to the right or to the left (Psalm 119:133). That is: do not defend free will in such a way that you attribute good works to it without the grace of God; nor defend grace in such a way that, as though secure because of it, you love evil works—which the grace of God itself turns you away from. For when the Apostle set before himself the words of such people, he said: What then shall we say? Shall we remain in sin that grace may abound? And by these words he answered, as he ought, those who err and do not understand the grace of God: God forbid! For we who have died to sin, how shall we still live in it? Nothing could have been said more briefly or better. For what more useful thing does the grace of God bestow upon us in this present evil age than that we should die to sin? And therefore that person will be found ungrateful to grace who, because of it, wishes to live in sin—by which grace we die to sin.
For we who have died to sin, how shall we still live in it? The first effect of baptismal grace is that we die to sin, so that our mind, our heart, our senses no longer live for it, are no longer affected by it, are no more moved toward it than the dead are affected or moved by the things of this world. Sins have been submerged in the font of baptism, consecrated by the blood of Christ, just as Pharaoh and the Egyptians pursuing Israel were submerged and died in the Red Sea. We have died to sin through the sacrament of regeneration; since those who are dead do not return to life, how shall we still live in sin? How shall we put on the old man again after having put him off in baptism? How shall we, washed and cleansed from the filth of sins, defile ourselves again? Let us say with the Bride: “I have put off my tunic; how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet; how shall I soil them?” (Song of Songs 5:3). Let us say with the Prophet: “I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord” (Psalm 118:17).
To the pomps of the world, to vanity, to the love of human praise, to all pleasures and desires of the world—which we renounced in baptism—we must be utterly dead. To obey the desires of sin is to live to sin; not to obey its desires is to die to sin. The natural appetite for food and drink is present in the flesh, which divine law commands to be kept within a certain measure of sufficiency and necessity. If one exceeds this, being enticed and drawn by concupiscence, he falls into gluttony and drunkenness and lives to sin. The appetite for propagating the human race is likewise natural in the flesh; but if one departs from the bounds prescribed by divine law, if the rights of marriage are violated, if one consents to illicit acts stirred by lust, one lives to sin. But if, mindful of our baptism and of the grace received in it, we preserve innocence, restrain desires, carefully avoid occasions of sin, do penance for the daily faults that creep in, flee bad company, renounce pleasure which is the gate of sin, and guard our senses with Christian vigilance, we have died to sin.
But if anyone, after having cast off the kingdom of sin and death and having taken up the kingdom of life and justice, again subjects himself to the dominion of sin, this is what the Apostle calls the shipwreck of faith. Let us therefore remain in grace, and not expect that after a fall we shall again be renewed through repentance while once more crucifying within ourselves the Son of God and holding him up to contempt; rather, let the kingdom of justice in us become an eternal kingdom.
Rom 6:3-4. Do you not know that all we who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death? A second effect of baptism is to apply to us the efficacy of the death of Christ and the power of his blood, to expiate our sins and to separate us from sin no less than if we ourselves had been offered to God and destroyed by death. We must be conformed to Christ who died for us, always carrying about the mortification of Jesus in our body, so that the body of the regenerate may become the flesh of the Crucified (cf. 2 Corinthians 4:10; St. John Chrysostom).
The third effect of baptismal grace is forgetfulness of earthly things and separation from the world, as regards the preparation of the mind and the disposition of the heart—like one truly buried with him. For we have been buried with him by baptism into death. We have been buried so that we may die together with him. For this mystical death has not yet been perfected in us, but must be perfected daily. For who truly venerates Christ as having suffered, died, and risen again, except the one who, being baptized with him, also suffers, dies, and rises with him? For the Cross is baptism. These things indeed are begun in all the faithful of the Church in the very mystery of regeneration, where the life of the one being reborn is the death of sin, and the triple immersion imitates the three days of the Lord’s death and burial; thus, as though a certain mound of burial were removed, the bosom of the font, which had received the old, gives forth the same as new by the wave of baptism. But this must be fulfilled by deeds, although it is not fulfilled in the same way; for Christ was truly dead and buried in the flesh, but we are dead to sin. Nevertheless, throughout whatever remains of worldly time, we must live not without the taking up of the cross.
Therefore, when we feel our desires tending toward that which would cause us to deviate from the right path, let us flee to the cross of the Lord and nail the movements of a harmful will to the tree of life, so that we may cry out with the voice of the Prophet: “Pierce my flesh with your fear; I am afraid of your judgments.” What does it mean to have one’s flesh nailed by the fear of God, except to restrain bodily senses from the enticement of unlawful desire under the fear of divine judgment? Thus the one who resists sin and kills his concupiscences lest they produce anything worthy of death may dare to say with the Apostle: “Far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world is crucified to me and I to the world” (Galatians 6:14).
The fourth effect of baptismal grace is spiritual resurrection and newness of life: that just as Christ rose from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life (St. John Chrysostom, Homily 10). Let us die to sin that we may live to God; let us be buried that we may rise. A new manner and pattern of life is shown by a change of morals: where the fornicator becomes chaste, the avaricious merciful, the angry and harsh gentle—this is spiritual resurrection, the prelude of that other, glorious resurrection. And how does resurrection take place? With sin mortified, justice rising up, the former life destroyed and a new, even angelic life reigning.
Christ rose by the glory of the Father; and we, if we are dead to sin and buried with Christ, are rightly said to have risen with Christ by the glory of the Father, because all who see our good works glorify our Father who is in heaven (cf. Origen). Thus we are said to walk in newness of life. Newness of life exists when we have put off the old man with his deeds and have put on the new man, who is created according to God and renewed in knowledge according to the image of him who created him. Do not think, however, that this renewal of life, once made, is sufficient; rather, this renewal must be renewed daily. For the Apostle says: “Even if our outward man is wasting away, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.” Just as the old grows old day by day, so the new is continually renewed, and there is never a time when its renewal does not increase. Let us therefore walk in newness of life, showing ourselves daily new to him who raised us with Christ, and—so to speak—more beautiful, gathering the beauty of our countenance in Christ as in a mirror, and beholding the glory of the Lord, being transformed into the same image by which Christ, rising from the dead, ascended from earthly lowliness to the glory of the Father’s majesty. Let us always advance in holy newness, never cease to walk forward, and go from virtue to virtue until we see God in Zion (cf. Romans 6; 2 Corinthians 4–5).
Rom 6:5. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall also be of his resurrection. The fifth effect of baptismal grace is grafting into the body of Christ through the likeness of his death. When a shoot is grafted into a tree, a wound is made in the bark of the mother tree; so that we might be grafted into Christ, not one but five wounds were made in his holy flesh. We die with Christ so that we may live with him and for him—in the present life of grace and in the future age of glory. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death… Origen shows the death of Christ as like a plant of a certain tree, to which he wishes us to be grafted, so that, drawing from the sap of its root, our own root may also receive nourishment and produce branches of justice and bear fruit unto life. Wisdom is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her, and whoever holds her fast is blessed (Proverbs 3). Christ, therefore, who is the power of God and the wisdom of God, is himself the tree of life, into which we must be grafted; and by a new and wondrous gift of God, the death of that tree of life becomes life for us.
But since the Apostle is not speaking here of our natural death, but of a mystical one, he does not say, “If we have been planted together in his death,” but “in the likeness of his death.” Christ died to sin once in such a way that he committed no sin at all, nor was deceit found in his mouth. No man except him is without sin, even if his life were but one day long. Therefore we cannot die to sin by the very death by which Jesus died to sin. This, then, is what human nature can receive: that this be done according to the likeness of his death, namely by imitating him in not sinning. To be utterly ignorant of sin belongs to Christ alone. Therefore he wishes us to be planted together in the likeness of his death, by which he died to sin once, so that we may also be planted together in his resurrection.
Every plant, after the death of winter, awaits the resurrection of spring. If, therefore, we too have been planted together in the death of Christ in the winter of this world and of the present life, we shall also be found in the future spring, bringing forth fruits of justice from his root. And if we have been planted together with him, it is necessary that the Father, the vinedresser, prune us as branches of the true vine, that we may bear much fruit, as he himself says in the Gospel: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away; and every one that bears fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.” Those who do not bear the fruit of justice and holiness are not grafted into Christ nor planted in the likeness of his death; and therefore they will not be sharers in his resurrection, but will proceed not to the resurrection of life, but to the resurrection of judgment.
Rom 6:6-8. Knowing this, that our old man has been crucified together with him, in order that the body of sin might be destroyed, and that we might no longer serve sin. To crucify the old man by repentance is not sufficient unless the body of sin is destroyed by destroying its members. Therefore mortify your members which are upon the earth (Colossians 3:5): fornication, uncleanness, lust, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is the service of idols. This destruction is accomplished through repentance, which ought to last as long as life itself. The crucifixion of the inner man, says St. Augustine, is understood as the pains of repentance—a certain salutary torment (lib. 4 De Trinitate, De continentia), through which, by death, the death of impiety is put to death. And therefore through such a cross the body of sin is emptied out, so that we may no longer present our members as instruments of iniquity to sin.
We have died to sin in Christ Jesus; we have been freed from the dominion of sin. Sin cannot again rule over us unless we will it. For he who has died has been justified from sin. This is true freedom: the mortification of disordered desires; this is true life—to die together with Christ. He who has died has been freed from the offices and functions of this mortal and miserable life, says St. Chrysostom; thus the baptized person, since he has died to sin in the sacred font, ought to remain completely dead to sin. For if after baptism he sins, he weakens the gift of God, shows himself unfaithful to God’s promises, and demonstrates that he despises what is more desirable than all things—namely, to live with Christ. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Christ. Let this hope, placed within our bosom, console us meanwhile.
Rom 6:9-11. Knowing that Christ, rising again from the dead, dies now no more; death shall no longer have dominion over him. Not only must one die to sin, but one must persevere in the newness of life and be conformed to the resurrection of Christ. In Christ nothing of mortality remains after his glorious resurrection; in the Christian raised by his grace, nothing of sin unto death remains. Those who, after their spiritual resurrection, hand themselves back over to the dominion of sin give the devil an opportunity to triumph over the very triumph of the risen and glorious Christ, so that the Evil One might again rejoice against the Lord, having recovered his prey (Tertullian).
Christ, having died once to expiate our sins, dies no more. Likewise the Christian, who has once died to sin in baptism and has been raised to new life, ought not henceforth to die the death of sin. Therefore baptism is one and necessary, just as there is one death and resurrection of Christ our Lord. If he does not die again, neither is there again a washing (St. Chrysostom, Hom. 11). And if there is no second washing, take care that you do not incline again to sin.
There remains indeed repentance, by which those who after baptism have fallen again into the death of sin may rise again; and this is an overflow of divine kindness and mercy. But those who, trusting in this second resurrection, sin again after having received the grace of baptism are horrendously ungrateful to God and expose themselves to the imminent danger of eternal perdition. Let no one therefore become worse because God is better, by sinning as often as he is forgiven (Tertullian, De Paenitentia). He will indeed reach the end of escape only when he no longer has the opportunity of offending. We have escaped once; let us not hurl ourselves again into dangers, even if we seem likely to escape again. Many, having been freed from shipwreck, thereafter renounce ship and sea forever, and honor God’s benefit—namely their salvation—by the memory of danger escaped. I praise fear; I love reverence. They do not wish to be a burden again upon divine mercy; they fear to seem to trample upon what they have obtained. With good caution they forbid themselves to experience again what they have once learned to fear. Thus moderation of rashness is a testimony of fear, and fear of God is the honor of man.
A Christian—whether raised by baptism or by repentance from the death of sin—if he dies again, it is to be feared that he was not truly raised, that his conversion was not sincere. True conversions are steadfast, not fickle and erratic as many suppose. The state of justice and holiness in which the grace of Christ places us is in itself firm and stable. The Spirit of God, though he breathes where he wills, is immutable and does not love inconstancy and levity. Grace lifts us into fellowship with the divine nature, which is immutable, even though we carry this treasure in earthen vessels. Those alternations of sin and grace, of life and death, of resurrection and relapse, are entirely foreign to the character of one raised to the newness of life in Christ.
St. Justin Martyr, speaking of the morals of Christians, attributes to them from the time when they had died to sin and died together with Christ in baptism a consistent integrity of life. “We,” he says, “who once delighted in debaucheries—still then placed in the darkness of Gentilism—now embrace chastity alone. We who practiced magical arts have consecrated ourselves to the good and eternal God. We who loved above all things the gain and profits of possessions and money now place what we have in common and share with all who are in need. We who lived in mutual hatred and slaughter, and according to received custom did not share a common hearth with those who were not of our tribe, now, since the manifestation of Christ, live familiarly together, pray for our enemies, and strive by persuasion to turn those who persecute us with unjust hatred, so that, living according to the honorable precepts of God, they may have good hope of obtaining from God, the ruler of all, the same rewards as we.”
He who has truly risen with Christ lives for the one God alone. Moved by one love, he does whatever he does not out of love for the world, nor for riches, honors, glory, or human praise, nor for pleasures. Love is the life of the human heart. He who loves the world lives for the world; he who loves God lives for God and is wholly consummated in him. By spiritual resurrection he is wholly devoted and consecrated to him as a victim both dead and living: dead to sin, living to God; mortified in the flesh by the cross and repentance, vivified and renewed in the spirit by the power of the death and resurrection of Christ. For in that he died, he died to sin once; but in that he lives, he lives to God.
Let us meditate on these things, and on our baptism and the covenant made therein with God. Let us always keep them in mind, and to all the suggestions of the world, the flesh, and the devil let us oppose this response: that we are dead to sin and live to God; that we have no end except God, no principle of life except Jesus Christ, from whom we profess that we depend as branches from the root, as a building from its foundation, as members from the head; to whom we desire to cling by perpetual charity and to remain in him. And that we may be able to attain this and never fall away from the holy newness of those regenerated in him, we must daily implore the continual help of his grace. So also you, reckon yourselves dead indeed to sin, but living to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Rom 6:12-13. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires. The law of sin—concupiscence—lives even in the just; who would not tremble? who would exalt himself? Yet it does not reign except in those who freely consent to its movements and desires. Therefore the Apostle uses the word “reign,” because a kingdom exists only over those who willingly submit themselves to another’s dominion. Let us therefore keep watch and continually fight if we do not wish to be conquered. There is in us a concupiscence of sin which must not be allowed to reign; its desires must not be obeyed, lest it reign over those who obey it. For this reason sin rules over the members if concupiscence usurps them to itself; but continence must claim them for itself, that they may be instruments of justice to God and not instruments of iniquity to sin (St. Augustine).
Such is the use of our members as is the affection of the heart. They serve the lord whom the heart has chosen: they fight for charity or for cupidity. To present them for sinning is to hand over God’s gifts to his enemy and to supply him with arms with which to fight against God as a traitor. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that you obey its desires. Neither present your members as instruments of iniquity to sin, but present yourselves to God as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of justice to God. As long as sin must necessarily exist in your members, at least let its kingdom be taken away; let it not do what it commands. Anger rises—do not give anger the tongue for cursing, nor the hand or foot for striking. That irrational anger would not rise unless sin were in the members; but take away its kingdom, let it have no arms with which to fight against you. It will also learn not to rise when it begins to find no arms.
Do not present your members as instruments of iniquity to sin, otherwise you will be wholly captive, and it will not be possible to say, “With the mind I serve the law of God.” For if the mind holds the arms, the members are not moved into the service of raging sin. Let the inner ruler hold the citadel, since a greater ruler stands by to help him. Let him restrain anger, curb concupiscence. There is indeed something that must be restrained, something that must be curbed, something that must be held. But what did that just man, serving the law of God with his mind, desire except that there should be nothing at all needing restraint? And this every Christian who tends toward perfection ought to strive for; and every Christian ought to strive toward perfection, so that even concupiscence itself—whose members are not given over to obedience—may be diminished daily in one who is making progress.
Rom 6:14-15. For sin shall not have dominion over you; for you are not under the Law but under grace. Sin rules over us when we commit it and remain in it; but if we resist it and give ourselves over to the service of God—which is true freedom—the kingdom of sin is destroyed in us. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you, says another Apostle; resist the devil, and he will flee from you (James 4). Spiritual Jews, believing in Christ who was to come and living from faith in him, kept the precepts of the Law not from fear of punishment but from love of justice; they were not under the Law but under grace. Carnal Christians, who do not keep the commandments of the Law or do so only from fear of punishment, are not under grace but under the Law (St. Augustine on Psalm 118, Sermon 11).
Only those are under grace over whom grace rules, who mortify the deeds of the flesh by the Spirit, who live and act according to the law of charity. For them the law is laid down not as for the unjust and rebellious—belonging to the Old Testament, written on tablets of stone—but as for holy children of the free woman, that is, children of the heavenly Jerusalem, children of promise and heirs of eternal life. For them the law is given by the Holy Spirit as by the finger of God, not on stone but in the mind and written in the heart—not so that they remember it and neglect it in life, but so that what they know by understanding they do by loving, in the breadth of love and not in the narrowness of fear. For whoever does the work of the law from fear of punishment and not from love of justice does it unwillingly; and what he does unwillingly, if it could be otherwise, he would prefer not to be commanded at all. Thus he is not a friend of the law he wishes did not exist, but rather its enemy; nor is one cleansed by works who is unclean in will. He is under the Law, not under grace, who remembers the law but does not love it; in this way he is guilty, because its memory is to him like stone—written not to adorn him but to weigh him down, a burden rather than a title of honor. Such a one hands himself over to the slavery of sin, whom he prefers to obey rather than justice. The enemy holds his will, and by the habit and custom of sin binds it like an iron chain and leads it captive. O shameful, harsh, and deadly slavery, which brings death to the soul and consigns it to eternal damnation.
Rom 6:16. Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey—either of sin unto death, or of obedience unto justice?
Rom 6:17-18. But thanks be to God that you were servants of sin, but you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine into which you were delivered. Unless our obedience were a gift of God, the Apostle would not give thanks to God for it. Thanksgiving is the clearest testimony of grace. God speaks to our heart and makes our heart docile and obedient to his word. If we obey from the heart, with charity inclining our heart to obedience and making that service sweet, we have happily exchanged the slavery of sin for the service of justice and piety, which is the true freedom of the children of God. But having been freed from sin, you became servants of justice.
But thanks be to God that you were servants of sin, but you obeyed from the heart… (St. Chrysostom). Just as when someone exhorts a man who has been freed from the harsh captivity of some cruel tyrant not to return again to that tyrant, nor to recall to mind the deathly slavery of sin, so Paul, by the thanks he gives to God, makes manifest the evils they have escaped. For, he says, it was not by human power that we were delivered from those evils, but by God, to whom thanks must be had and rendered, since he both willed and was able to do this. And rightly he said, you obeyed from the heart, for you were not compelled by force nor driven by necessity, but of your own will you withdrew yourselves from those evils. If you approached freely and suffered no violence, what pardon, what excuse could you put forward if you were to return to your former ways? Finally, that you may understand that the praise of the whole matter is to be referred not so much to their docile and prompt disposition as to the grace and beneficence of God, when he had said you obeyed from the heart, he added into that form of doctrine into which you were delivered. For obedience proceeding from the heart proves free will; but that they were “delivered” into the form or pattern of evangelical doctrine signifies the grace of God.
But having been freed from sin, you became servants of justice. The Apostle recalls to mind two gifts of God: first, that he has freed us from sin; second, that he has made us servants of justice. The latter is even prior and more excellent than any former liberty. For God deals with us as if someone were to find an orphan child who had been carried off by barbarians into their land, and not only free him from captivity but also show himself to him as a devoted and caring father, and then adorn him with some outstanding dignity. This has been done in our case. For God has not only freed us from our former sins, but has also led us into an angelic way of life, fortified us with the path of the best discipline and governance, handing us over to the guardianship and protection of justice, removing all former evils, mortifying the old man, and finally leading us by the hand, as it were, to immortal life. In this life, therefore—in this happy and glorious service which makes us free with the freedom of the children of God—let us persevere.
Thanks be to God that you were servants of sin, but you obeyed from the heart into that form of doctrine into which you were delivered. Of few Christians today, perhaps, can it be said what the Apostle said of all the Romans converted to the faith of Christ and baptized (Origen, Hom. 6). We were all servants of sin; but when the form of evangelical doctrine was handed down to us, and we chose to obey it—not carelessly nor with words alone, but from the heart and with total devotion—we were freed from the slavery of sin and became servants of justice. Yet I fear lest perhaps many of us seem to have received the form of the doctrine of justice and appear indeed to obey justice in words or profession, while in heart we obey sin, the vices of the flesh still ruling within us. And therefore above all we need that mortification of the members of which he spoke earlier.
But having been freed from sin, you became servants of justice. When he says “servants of justice,” understand at the same time servants of wisdom, piety, modesty, and all the virtues befitting the Christian profession and state. Thus must be understood what the royal Prophet wrote: Open to me the gates of justice; entering them I will confess to the Lord (Psalm 118:19). For he who wishes to confess to the Lord does not enter only through the gates of justice insofar as justice is a particular virtue, but also through those of truth, wisdom, piety, chastity, and the rest. For there is one common hall of the virtues, whose gates he asks to be opened to him under the name of justice.
Rom 6:19. I speak in human terms because of the infirmity of your flesh. For just as you presented your members to serve uncleanness and iniquity unto iniquity, so now present your members to serve justice unto sanctification. You ought to devote far greater zeal to the service of justice than you formerly devoted to the service of sin. God could justly demand this of you by his own right; I too could demand it of you in his name as his ambassador and minister, as the Prophet demanded of the Jews: As your mind was set to go astray from God, so return tenfold and seek him (Baruch 4:28). And what should you not do to appease God and merit his favor? What should you not give, what should you not suffer, to avert the danger of eternal damnation? Yet, taking account of your infirmity, I ask only this of you: that you show equal zeal in cultivating virtues as you once showed in cultivating vices.
The claim of justice which we owe to God requires that our repentance be not less than our guilt, that our members and all our faculties be consecrated by repentance to the service of God, which we had devoted and bound over to the service of sin and the devil. Formerly your feet ran to spectacles, to gambling games, to gatherings and assemblies of men or women in which innocence is endangered; now run to the Church of God. Frequent the divine offices; visit the sick lying in hospitals, the prisoners in jails; console them and relieve them. Formerly you ran to shed blood; now hasten to rescue the orphan and the widow from the hand of the stronger who oppress them. Hands once stretched out to plunder what belonged to others by extortion, fraud, and usury—now let them be opened to give generously of what is your own. Eyes once looked about upon women or any possessions whatsoever belonging to others for the sake of lust; now let them look around upon the poor, the weak, the afflicted, upon anyone whatsoever, to show mercy and to help. Ears once delighted in empty sounds, obscene songs, detractions; now let them be turned to hearing the word of God, sacred readings, and pious conversations. The tongue, accustomed to insults, curses, and foul speech, should now be moved to bless the Lord at all times; let it utter sound and honest words, that it may give grace to the hearers and speak truth with its neighbor.
For just as you presented your members to serve uncleanness and iniquity unto iniquity, so now present your members to serve justice unto sanctification. What does “just as that, so also this” mean, except: just as no fear compelled you to sin, but the lust and pleasure of sin itself, so now in living justly let not fear of punishment drive you, but let delight and love of justice lead you (St. Augustine, Ep. 145; Enarr. in Ps. 144). And this, as it seems to me, is not yet perfect justice, but justice in a certain mature state. For he would not have prefaced this with I speak in human terms because of the infirmity of your flesh unless he meant that something more could be said, if they were already able to bear it. For indeed greater service is owed to justice than men are accustomed to render to sin. Fear of bodily punishment, even if not from the will, restrains from the work of sin; scarcely anyone openly commits what gives illicit and impure pleasure if he knows that the torture of vengeance will immediately follow. Justice, however, must be loved in such a way that even bodily punishments should not restrain us from its works, and that even in the hands of cruel enemies our works may shine before men, so that those whom they may please may glorify our Father who is in heaven.
Rom 6:20-22. For when you were servants of sin, you were free from justice. Miserable, wretched, and blind is the sinner’s freedom, which foolishly prefers the heavy burden of sin to the light and sweet yoke of Christ. A vain man is lifted up in pride and thinks himself free like a wild donkey’s colt (Job 11:12). Of such “freedom” it is truer to speak as slavery, since everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin (John 8). God says through the Prophet: Long ago you broke my yoke, you burst my bonds, and you said, “I will not serve” (Jeremiah 2:20). He falsely seems free to himself who serves as many masters as he has vices, and who suffers a harsher slavery than that under which the Israelites were oppressed in Egypt under Pharaoh, assigned to the hard works of clay and brick (Exodus 1). For freedom without grace is not freedom but obstinacy. How can sin be loved, which is accompanied by the most miserable slavery of the soul, followed by disgrace, and whose end is eternal death?
What fruit then did you have at that time in those things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of them is death. Blessed are those who are ashamed not only of having sinned, but who repent above all things out of love for God; wretched are those who are ashamed to repent and to confess sins when they are not ashamed to have sinned. There is a shame that leads to sin, and there is a shame that leads to glory and grace (Sirach 4:25), says the Wise Man. It is intolerable, says Tertullian, that out of shame one should refuse to satisfy the offended Lord and to restore ruined salvation (De Paenitentia, ch. 10). A false modesty is good at expanding the face to commit sin, but draws it back when one must beg forgiveness. “I make no place for shame,” says Augustine, “since I gain more by its loss, when it exhorts a man: ‘Do not look at me, saying: for your sake it is better for me to perish.’” Most unhappy of all are those who are ashamed not to have sinned, who glory in wickedness, who boast of iniquities they perhaps have not even committed, whom hostile companionship and the fellowship of the wicked draw on so that it is shameful not to be shameless. Such was the misery of Augustine’s youth, which he laments in the Confessions (Book 2): “I did not know, and I rushed headlong with such blindness that among my peers I was ashamed of being less disgraceful, because I heard them boasting of their crimes, and glorying the more the more shameful they were; and I took pleasure in doing not only from the lust of the deed, but also from the desire of praise. What is worthy of blame if not vice? Yet lest I be blamed, I became more vicious; and where there was no deed by which I could equal the lost, I pretended to have done what I had not done, lest I seem more contemptible for being more innocent, and lest I be judged more vile for being more chaste.”
What fruit then did you have in those sins of which you are now ashamed? None at all. There is no fruit of sin, no fruitful work that does not spring from the root of charity, that does not help man to attain eternal beatitude. The sinner is an unfruitful tree over which the axe hangs. Their works are useless works, and the work of iniquity is in their hands. Shame or confusion remains inwardly and outwardly with sinners: I was confounded and ashamed, because I bore the reproach of my youth (Jeremiah 31:19).
What, finally, is the end of sin? The death of the soul abandoned by God, from which there follows the second death, which consists not in the separation of soul and body, but rather in the eternal punishment of both together—eternal death—where the reprobate will never live and never die, but will be forever dying without end. For, says Augustine (De Civitate Dei 13.11), there will never be anything worse for man in death than where death itself will be without death.
Rom 6:22. But now, having been freed from sin and made servants of God, you have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end eternal life. Glorious is the shame even after liberation from the works of sin; glorious also is sanctification. The service of justice is joined with great confidence. The end of the former is death; the end of the latter is eternal life. Happy is that service which binds us to God, which places us in such a state that we are not only ruled by his Spirit but are moved by him, which willingly subjects us to his law. Happy and free is that service where not necessity but charity serves. Glorious is that service which makes saints in time and kings in eternity.
Christian, you who are called into the freedom of the children of God, let it weary you to be in the slavery of vices. Acknowledge your Redeemer, your manumitter. Serve him who commands gently. Consider your price: he came to redeem you; he shed his blood. He held you dear whom he bought at so great a cost. Do you recognize who bought you? Consider from what he redeemed you. You were a servant of iniquity—be now a servant of justice. If you are unwilling, you are not necessary to his household; he does not need one who serves unwillingly.
Rom 6:23. For the wages of sin is death. He who fights for sin and hopes for something else deceives himself: the wages of sin is death. The reign of death spread over men after sin to such an extent that it would have driven all—even the good—headlong into the second death, whose punishment has no end, unless the power of the grace of God had freed some from it. From our works we would merit nothing except eternal damnation; for from ourselves we have nothing but sin—the wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The Apostle could have said “the wages of justice is eternal life,” but he preferred to say the gift of God, so that we might understand that God leads us to eternal life not for our merits but out of his mercy. Of this the Psalm speaks: Who crowns you with mercy and compassion (Psalm 102[103]:4). Is not a crown rendered for good works? Yes—but because those good works themselves are worked in us by him of whom it is said, For God is the one who works in you both to will and to accomplish according to his good pleasure (Philippians 2:13). Therefore the Psalm says, He crowns you with mercy and compassion, because it is by his mercy that we perform the good works for which the crown is given. Let no one therefore glory in himself, since he has nothing good in himself which he has not received by free will enlightened by grace. From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace (John 1:16). From the fullness of Christ our Head we receive, according to our measure, as it were our portions, so that we may live well, as God has apportioned to each the measure of faith. Each has his own gift from God, one in this way, another in that (Romans 12:3). This itself is grace; and beyond this we shall also receive grace upon grace, when eternal life is given to us, of which the Apostle said: But the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (cf. 2 Corinthians 7:7).
CONTINUE
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