Rom 5:1-2 — “Therefore, being justified by faith, let us have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we glory in the hope of the glory of the sons of God.”
He shows that righteousness is from the grace of faith, without the Law. Here he shows that from this same source many other goods follow.
As if he were saying: Because justification is from faith, therefore have peace with God. As if he said: This disagreement that is among you is against God. For the Jews and the Gentiles were disputing among themselves: the Jews boasting presumptuously of the works of the ancient Law, and the Gentiles of the new calling of Christ, each claiming merits; therefore, restraining the boasting of both, he exhorts them to peace, and lest they be indignant, he counts himself among them.
As if he said: Since righteousness is from faith, therefore we too are justified by faith—not by the Law, not from ourselves, that is, not because of any merit of ours preceding faith. Let us have peace with God, which you Romans do not have while you arrogate to yourselves against one another.
Notice that he says here “justified by faith,” whereas above he said “justified freely by grace.” He said this so that faith itself might not become proud and say to itself: If justification is by faith, how is it free? For if faith merits it, why is it not rather rendered than given? Let not the faithful person say this, because when he says, “I have faith so that I may merit justification,” it is answered to him: “What do you have that you did not receive?” (1 Cor 4). Therefore, when faith obtains justification, as God has distributed to each a measure of faith, no human merit precedes the grace of God; rather, grace itself merits to be increased, so that when increased it may merit to be perfected—while the will accompanies, not leads; follows, not precedes the ordering of God.
Therefore we are truly justified by faith, and through it let us have peace with God. Faith brings about peace with God, not the Law; for faith reconciles us to God by removing sins which had made us enemies.
He has peace with God who does not contend against His commandments with a contrary will, who follows the Lord’s commands and bends his will to every divine precept. True peace is to agree with good morals and to wage war against vices. By contrast, the peace of this world, which is friendly to vices, is at odds with God; Christ came not to bring it but to take it away.
I say, let us have peace with God, because we have been reconciled to Him through a free ministry, namely through our Lord Jesus Christ—that is, through His help and grace.
“Through whom…” He enumerates the benefits we have from Christ, saying: Through Christ, that is, by whose help, we have access by faith—that is, an entrance or approach not only to God but also into this grace, that is, into the good observance of life, in which we stand, raised up by hope of heavenly brightness, we who before died in Adam—and we glory in the hope of the glory of the sons of God, that is, of the angels or the saints; that is, we glory in the fact that we hope for the glory which the sons of God possess.
Rom 5:3–5 — “And not only so, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces patience; and patience, testing; and testing, hope. And hope does not confound, because the charity of God is poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
Not only do we glory in the hope of glory, but we also glory, through His grace, in tribulations which we suffer for Christ, through which we go to glory. For through tribulations we must enter the kingdom of heaven.
Tribulation added to hope increases the reward and is a sign of firm hope. It is no great thing to glory in pleasant things; the upright in heart glory even in tribulations, knowing the greatness of the reward, since by the end of tribulation they will gain an infinite reward.
Why do we glory? Because we know that tribulation produces patience, since through the exercise of tribulation one is trained in strength while bravely enduring sufferings—by which the holy martyrs conquered the cruelty of tyrants. Tribulation produces patience either by increasing it or rather by manifesting it. That tribulation does not take away patience but increases it is due to charity, which is the proper gift of the Holy Spirit.
Patience produces testing, that is, purification. The more one suffers, the purer he becomes, since the faithful soul, not resisting God’s ordinance, loves the will of Him from whom the power is given, even when the power of malice is permitted against the good. Thus, when someone understands that no power—whether of demons or persecutors—exists except from God, and endures patiently, he is tested, that is, shown to be good and made better, like gold which by fire is both shown pure and made purer.
This testing produces hope—that is, certainty of future glory. Hope is a sure expectation of future glory, which seems vain to human reasoning but is confirmed by the testimony of virtue, namely patience or miracles. For he who is found steadfast amid tribulations confidently awaits the reward of future blessedness.
This hope, although we may be judged foolish by unbelievers for believing things that lack worldly reasoning, nevertheless does not confound—that is, it does not make one ashamed—because it is fulfilled. One is confounded who does not obtain what he hoped for, as happens to one who hopes in man. But this hope does not confound because it is in God, who neither deceives nor is deceived.
Because the charity of God is poured out… That is, hope is fulfilled and we know it will be fulfilled because the charity of God is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit given to us. Charity is not from ourselves but from Him. We already have the Holy Spirit as a pledge, by whom, with charity poured into our hearts, we love God abundantly.
The language of “pouring out” signifies the abundance of the gift. The Holy Spirit given to us proves that God’s promise is faithful, for He is the pledge of the fulfillment of hope.
Note that the Apostle gradually leads us up to the charity of God, which is greater than the other virtues; and when he says we have it through the gift of the Spirit, he shows that all these things must be attributed to God.
Whence, then, do you have charity, O man, except because it is poured into your heart by the Holy Spirit? Therefore lest anyone think he has it by free choice, when he said “the charity of God is poured into our hearts,” he added “through the Holy Spirit who is given to us.”
From whom is He given? From Him who ascended on high—to the Father—for He gave gifts to men. In this is shown authority in the Father, nativity in the Son, and the communion of Father and Son in the Holy Spirit; equality in the three. What is common to Father and Son, through this He wished us to have communion both with one another and with Him—through the Holy Spirit, who is both God and the gift of God. In this we are reconciled to the Divinity and delight in Him.
Just as we speak truth by truth, so we love by charity, that we may know more fully and enjoy in blessedness what is known. Because by sins we were alienated from the possession of true goods, charity was given which covers a multitude of sins.
I think the Holy Spirit was given twice to commend to us the two commandments of charity: to love God and to love neighbor. Charity is one, but the commandments are two; one Spirit, but two givings—because the charity by which we love neighbor is the same by which we love God.
This charity, as the Apostle says, is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit given to us. He gives such a gift as He Himself is. Great is His mercy: He gives a gift equal to Himself, because His gift is the Holy Spirit—one God, the whole Trinity.
The Spirit of the Father and the Son pours charity into our hearts, whom we love with the Father and the Son. He gave Himself so that He might be loved—He who loved us when we did not love Him. He is the fountain of living water; the wicked cannot receive Him, and charity is such that no one can have it and be evil.
Understand, therefore, that the Holy Spirit is in love: one may have Christ’s name, baptism, receive the Lord’s body, and possess the sacraments, and still be evil—but charity is the proper gift of the Spirit and a unique fountain.
By saying that charity is poured out through the Spirit given to us, he shows that the Spirit is both God and God’s gift; or it may be understood as God’s love for us—that is, hope does not confound because God abundantly loves us. The Spirit makes us understand God’s love toward us and thus strengthens our hope, since God cannot deceive those whom He loves.
Rom 5:6–7 — “For why did Christ, when we were still weak, at the appointed time die for the ungodly? For scarcely will anyone die for a just man; perhaps for a good man someone might dare to die.”
He showed above that hope will be fulfilled because Christ loves us or we love Him through the Spirit; now he shows the same by Christ’s death, which is both the effect of divine love and the cause of our hope.
As if he said: Since God loves us—or we love Him through the Holy Spirit—it is clear that hope will be fulfilled; otherwise Christ suffered in vain. For if hope were not to be fulfilled, why did Christ die? Why did He do so great a thing—namely, die—and that for the ungodly, that is, out of love for the ungodly, or in place of the ungodly who deserved eternal death?
While we were still weak in sins and in need of a physician, He died—and this “according to time,” that is, only for three days, since He rose on the third day. Do not despair of His power whose goodwill is evident in His death; He gave His death to the ungodly and keeps His life for the just.
He died for you, mortal man, that you might live with Him; He took our death to give us His life. It is more incredible that the Eternal died than that a mortal should live forever. We already hold the greater—that God died for men. Will not man live with God, for whom He died?
How did God die? He took from you what He would offer for you; He clothed Himself in mortal flesh in the virginity of His mother to clothe you with eternal life in equality with the Father. See how you were loved when not lovable—loved first so that you might become worthy of love.
Truly this is great: scarcely does anyone die for a just man; perhaps someone might dare to die for a good man. But Christ died for the impieties of a people not yet His.
A distinction may be made: the “just” is one exercised in virtue; the “good” one simple and innocent, like children cleansed in baptism. Though the just is greater, innocence is more pitiable; hence one might more readily die for the innocent out of compassion, but rarely for the just out of zeal for virtue.
Rom 5:8–10 — “But God commends His charity toward us, because while we were still sinners Christ died for us… much more, being now justified in His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him… if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.”
As if he said: Hardly does anyone die for a just or good man, but Christ died for us sinners. In this God commends His charity—that is, shows it more clearly—toward us who were unworthy. The great effect of the Father sending and the Son coming is shown in that Christ died for us while we were still sinners.
Therefore we are now justified by the remission of sins in His blood—that is, by His death—and much more, being now just, we shall be saved by Him living. It is harder to die for sin and remove it than to save those already justified.
We shall be saved from wrath—that is, from eternal punishment, whose cause is sin, which He has taken away. “Wrath of God” does not mean disturbance in God but His just vengeance.
Note how the Apostle often repeats Christ’s death to commend divine love and repeats human weakness to humble pride.
Behold: while He hated us according to our sins, He loved us according to what He had made. His love is incomprehensible and unchangeable. He did not begin to love us after reconciliation; He loved us before the world, so that we might be sons with His Only-begotten.
Our reconciliation is not as though God began to love those He formerly hated, but we were reconciled to the God who already loved us, though we were His enemies by sin. In a wondrous way He both hated what we had made and loved what He had made.
Thus not our merit but God’s mercy is commended: He loved us so greatly that He died for us sinners—this is the testimony and pledge of His love. He who did not spare His own Son but delivered Him up for us all—how will He not also give us all things with Him?
This had to be said to show how much He loved us and what we were like: how much, lest we despair; what we were, lest we become proud.
It must also be noted that he says we are justified in the blood of Christ and reconciled to God, as though there were no other way by which He could reconcile and justify us except through the death of Christ. Concerning this we say that another way was indeed possible for God, who can do all things; yet no other was more fitting for the healing of our misery.
For what so greatly lifts up our minds and frees them from despair of immortality as this: that God valued us so highly that the Son of God, remaining unchangeably good in Himself as what He was, and receiving from us and for us what He was not—without detriment to His own nature—deigned to enter into fellowship with us, and, without any evil merit of His own, bore our evils by dying, and bestowed His gifts upon believers with undeserved generosity, though we had no merits of our own?
For even those things which are called our good merits are His gifts. Indeed, our merits are God’s gifts, by which we attain to the highest good.
There is also another reason why He chose to deliver us in this way rather than another: because in this manner—namely through the death of Christ—the devil is overcome by justice, not by power. How this was done I shall explain as best I can.
By a certain justice of God the human race was handed over into the power of the devil, since the sin of the first man passed originally into all born of the union of both sexes, and the debt of our first parents bound them; therefore all men from their origin are under the prince of the devil. Hence the Apostle says: “We were by nature children of wrath,” that is, by nature as it has been corrupted by sin, not as it was created in the beginning.
But the manner in which man was handed over into the power of the devil must not be understood as though God did this or commanded it to be done, but only that He permitted it; yet justly, for when He abandoned the sinner, the author of sin immediately seized him. Nevertheless, God did not shut up His mercies in anger, nor did He lose man from the law of His power when He permitted him to be under the devil’s power; rather, amid penal evils He also bestowed many good things upon the wicked, and at last delivered man—whom the mixture of sins had subjected to the devil—by granting the remission of sins through the blood of Christ, rescuing him from the devil so that the devil might thus be conquered by justice, not by power.
But by what justice? By the justice of Jesus Christ. And how was he conquered by it? Because although he found nothing in Christ worthy of death, he nevertheless killed Him.
Surely it is just that those debtors whom he held should be set free if they believe in Him whom he killed without any debt.
He did not wish to conquer by power because the devil, through the vice of perversity, is an admirer of power and a deserter and assailant of justice; and in this men imitate him more when, neglecting or even hating justice, they strive rather after power, rejoicing in its attainment or inflamed by desire for it. Therefore it pleased God that, conquering not by power but by justice, He should rescue man, so that man might learn to imitate Him. Afterwards, however, power followed in the resurrection. Justice therefore first, and power afterwards.
He conquered the devil by justice because He had no sin and was killed by that most unjust one; by power, because He rose again, never to die.
But would He not have most justly conquered the devil if Christ had chosen to deal with him by power alone? Certainly. Yet Christ set aside what He could do in order first to do what was fitting. For this it was necessary that He be both man and God. For if He were not man, He could not be killed; if He were not God, it would not be believed that He chose not to do what He could, but rather that He could not do what He willed. Therefore the justice of humility liberated man, whom power alone could most justly have freed.
If those three—God, man, and the devil—were brought into the case, what could the devil and man say against God? They would have nothing at all and would entirely fail in the action of the case. For the devil would be convicted of having done injury to God, because he both fraudulently led away His servant—that is, man—and violently held him. Man also would be convicted of having done injury to God because he despised His commands and, handing himself over to another master, brought upon himself the loss of his own servitude. The devil would likewise be convicted of having injured man, because first by promising good he deceived him, and afterwards by inflicting evil he harmed him.
Therefore the devil, as far as he was concerned, unjustly held man; but man was justly held, because the devil never deserved to have power over man, but man deserved by his fault to suffer the devil’s tyranny.
If, therefore, God—who certainly had authority—had wished to free man by power, He could most justly have done so by the mere force of His command; but for the reason already stated He preferred to use the justice of humility, and thus He delivered His Son to death for us, by which we were justified and reconciled to God.
This is the price of our reconciliation which Christ offered to God the Father so that He might be appeased—not that He did not love us before, for out of that love He delivered His Son for us; nor was the Son handed over to us as though unwilling because the Father did not spare Him, since it is said of Him that He gave Himself. Therefore, as in all other things, the Father and the Son and the Spirit of both work together in harmony.
But if God loved us beforehand, how are we reconciled to Him through the death of Christ and delivered from wrath? We say that the wrath of God—who judges with tranquility—is nothing other than just punishment. If, therefore, just divine punishment receives such a name, the reconciliation of God is rightly understood when the weapons of wrath cease, namely when we are absolved from the liability of punishment.
For we were enemies of God only insofar as sins are enemies of justice; and therefore when sins are forgiven such enmities end, and those whom He justifies are reconciled to the Just One.
Our sins the devil held, and through them he justly drove us to death; but the blood was so powerful that the undeserved death of Christ freed from eternal death those whom He nevertheless loved even as enemies.
Hence it rightly follows: “through the death of the Son,” as if to say that now living He can save those who have been made friends. For we are reconciled to God, who previously were justly under the power of the devil through a nature corrupted by sin. Reconciled, I say, through the death of His Son while we were still enemies—not merely sinners in some ordinary way. And if this is so, then much more, having been reconciled, we shall not only be freed from wrath but also saved, and this in His life—that is, through His life, because He rose from the dead.
The sense is: from this it is certain that living He can save friends, because dying He was able to justify; by which act those who were enemies through sin are reconciled and become friends of God. Note also that he says here “reconciled through death,” which above he expressed as “justified in blood.” I say: we shall be saved.
Rom 5:11 — “Not only so, but we also glory in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”
Not only shall we be saved, but we also glory, now in hope of what we shall be in God—that is, one with God in the future, not by nature but by love and will, because we shall love and will nothing except what God loves and wills. Or we glory in the present, not in ourselves but in God, and this not through ourselves but through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom already now in the present we have received reconciliation with God, from whom we had departed when Adam sinned.
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