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Pelagius

Nicene & Post-Nicene · AD 325–500 · 465 passages across 8 books

Commentary

281–300 of 465
Romans 8:32

He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

God allowed Christ to be handed over in order to preserve the freedom of choice of those who handed him over and to set us an example of patience. How can God have anything dearer to offer us? He offered us his only Son.

PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

Romans 8:33

Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth.

Who will dare to charge believers whom God has chosen and shown to be righteous by signs and wonders for previous sins or for disregard of the law’s commands?

PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

Romans 8:34

Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.

Paul speaks of Jesus according to the form of the man he assumed, who died and rose again. Now he intercedes for us so that we may go to be with him where he is. The Arians are in the habit of stirring up false accusations on the basis of Christ’s intercession, claiming that the one to whom intercession is made is greater than the one who does the interceding. To this one must answer that God does not forget and so does not need to be constantly reminded of those whom he himself chose. Christ intercedes when, as a true and eternal High Priest, he constantly presents and offers as our guarantee to the Father, the man whom he received.

PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

Romans 8:35

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

After so many and such splendid benefits and promises, what affliction could be so heavy that it might tear us away from love for Christ? In saying “us” Paul is saying that we should all be the sort of Christians that even dangers cannot separate from Christ.

PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

Romans 8:36

As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.

We suffer not for any crime but for the sake of him who said: “Blessed are you when men shall persecute you, etc.” This is especially fulfilled in Christians, for we are not permitted to defend ourselves but must endure all attacks with the greatest patience, according to the example of our Lord and teacher, who was led like a sheep to the slaughter.

PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

Romans 8:37

Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

All these troubles we count as nothing because of him who loved us so much that he even dies for us. And we especially triumph when we die for his name, since it is a light thing to suffer what the Lord first suffered for others.

PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

Romans 8:39

Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I am sure that even if someone threatens us with death, or promises life, or says he is an angel sent from the Lord, or pretends to be the prince of the angels, or gives us some honor in this present life, or holds out the glory of things to come, or works wonders, or promises heaven and staves off hell, or tries to persuade us with deep learning—I am sure that he will never be able to cut us off from the love of Christ.Paul loved God in Christ. Love for Christ means keeping his commandments. Christ established that brotherly love is an imitation of his own love when he said: “By this will all men know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” So John also says: “If you do not love a brother whom you see, how can you love God, whom you do not see?”

PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

Romans 9:1

I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost,

Because Paul says that his conscience bears him witness, he shows that he is telling the truth, which conscience corroborates in everyone, and he establishes that he is not charged with lying by an accusation from within.

PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

Romans 9:2

That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart.

Because Paul intends to proceed against the Jews, he first assures them that he does not speak out of hatred for them, but out of love, for it pains him that they do not believe in Christ, who had come to save them as soon as possible.

PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

Romans 9:3

For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh:

Paul wished this at one time, before he became a follower of Christ.… But after he recognized the truth, he abandoned those whom he used to love in this way, yet still they do not repent.

PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

Romans 9:4

Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises;

“The sonship” belongs to the Jews, for of them it was said: “Israel, my firstborn son.” They had the old law and the promise of the new law.

PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

Romans 9:5

Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.

The patriarchs are Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Paul writes here against the Manicheans, Photinus and Arius because Christ is of the Jews according to the flesh, and God, blessed forever.

PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

Romans 9:6

Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel:

Since Paul has said above that he is upset that the people of Israel had been shut out of the kingdom by their own fault, for all these things had belonged to them, he shows here that those who do not believe are not sons of Abraham, lest someone think that he was opposed to all Jews and retort: “Did God then lie to Abraham?”

PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

Romans 9:7

Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called.

Not all Jews are children of Abraham, but some still are; and if not all Israelites are from Israel, then some … are from the Gentiles. Even so, the sons of Abraham were named in Isaac alone and not in Ishmael, although he too descended from Abraham’s line.

PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

Romans 9:8

That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed.

Ishmael was born of a maidservant by sexual intercourse, but Isaac was begotten by supernatural means from old people, by God’s promise. So the promise, which Abraham’s faith merited, now makes Christians sons of Abraham, so that Abraham is indeed the father of many nations.

PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

Romans 9:10 · 2 passages

And not only this; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac;

Not only are Ishmael and Isaac (who were born of different mothers but the same father) not equal in the sight of God; Jacob and Esau too (who were born of Rebecca by a single conception), were separated in God’s sight before they were born, because of their future faith, so that God’s plan to choose the good and reject the evil already existed in his foreknowledge. Thus God has now chosen from among the Gentiles those whom he foreknew would believe and has rejected those of Israel whom he foreknew would not believe. Rebecca is thought to have been the first woman to have borne twins; it is because this strange thing has happened to her that she inquires of God.

PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

God’s foreknowledge does not prejudge the sinner, if he is willing to repent.

PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

Romans 9:11

(For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;)

Perhaps this happened so that it might be shown that even from a set of twins the one who does not believe is abandoned.

PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

Romans 9:12

It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger.

Here Paul shows that the people who came afterward belonged to the promise after the manner of Isaac.

PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

Romans 9:13

As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.

The apostle shows that what had been told to Rebecca was fulfilled in her descendants.

PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

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