The Dominion of Law and Grace

But what is the righteousness of the Lord? It is the obedience which he obeyed to the Father, according to the becoming-man and suffering on behalf of men, just as the apostle says in other places: having been found in form as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, even the death of a cross. Thus, obedience removed the disobedience and, regarding the best thing, it overcame the worst.

Having said so that grace might abound, he showed that even before the law there were transgressions, and men knew they were stumbling (Rom 5:13-14). Not indeed all things which they stumbled in, but he perceived them as stumbles; rather, the law being given, it stripped bare and showed more things to be existing than they used to consider. And accurately he said that which entered in: for between the disobedience of Adam and the arrival of the Savior, the law took a passage into life. And where sin abounded, grace super-abounded (Rom 5:20). Where then did sin abound? Where the law was. And if the law was among the Jews, there also grace super-abounded; for from there came evangelists and apostles and the head of salvation, Christ.

What then shall we say? It says, shall we remain in sin so that grace might abound? (Rom 6:1) May it never be! He safely led to the 'may it never be'; for not those sinning unskillfully are worthy of forgiveness, but those receiving the methods of the devil through laziness and inattentiveness—these are to be pitied by God as righteous. Since we died to sin, how shall we live in it any longer? (Rom 6:2) Because being baptized we confess to have died to the world and to separate ourselves from sin and the devil (Rom 6:4).

Precisely the grafted-together has established this; for of those grafted-together, nature often becomes one through adhesion. Thus also those having been sincerely baptized into the death of Christ are united to him through faith (Rom 6:5). If it were possible, he says, for Christ to die for the sinners a second and third time, perhaps it would have been harmless to run back to the old habit of sins, which always had a hope of philanthropy. But if, having died once, he no longer dies, so also we, having been buried with him and having been raised, no longer die to sins (Rom 6:7-8); for there is no second baptism, nor a second death of Christ, for which reason it is more secure to live. For he who died, died to sin once, that is, on behalf of the...

of the dying of humans; but he who lives, lives to God, that is, to live forever, since he is God. In this way, therefore, you also die to your sins, but live to God, through whom you live (Rom 6:12–14). Do not let your members be presented as weapons of unrighteousness to sin, instead of you not giving weapons to the evil one and strength by sinning yourselves (Rom 6:12–14). For sin shall not rule over you; for you are not under law but under grace (Rom 6:14).

What sin shall not rule? The one before baptism, which the grace of Christ forgives. But the law was not able to do this. You are not under law the one who is not able to be saved, but rather one who is being punished (Rom 6:14). I am able, he says, to say something more excellent and greater, worthy of surpassing benefit, but I say this much, being weak in the flesh (Rom 6:19).

Those who sin are being provisioned by the devil in this way: selling up self-control and buying intemperance, selling kindness and seizing coarseness. Those, therefore, having become the own property as it were of sin, submit themselves to death; for the wages of sin is death (Rom 6:23). Or perhaps he says this, that the things being provisioned from the enemy are the things of death (Rom 6:23).

From this he constructs, that while the law was prevailing before Christ, it was not permitted for another to be bound, that is, to be bound to grace; but when the law has ceased and in a way has died, it is possible for the remnant to be joined to the heavenly Bridegroom (Rom 7:1–3). For he places both the law and Christ in the domain of a man; the one for the church, since just as the man is the beginning of the woman, so Christ is of the church, and the law once of the assembly (Rom 7:1–3). The law, he says, rules over the man for as long as he lives. Who lives? The law. And just as it discourses about a man and his cohabitant, so it is about him (Rom 7:1–3).

For when we were in the flesh, he says, instead of being in the law; for those in law were giving indulgence to the flesh (Rom 7:5). He spoke accurately, 'through the law', not 'from the law'; for the law did not provide for sinning, even though it commanded not to sin (Rom 7:7). He said therefore 'through the law', because by forgiving, it gave indulgence to the passions as a pretext, so that the law was constructing not what it wanted, but what it did not want (Rom 7:7). But the sin, he says, I did not know except through law (Rom 7:7). He did not say 'but the sin not'...