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Pelagius

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

Commentary

161–180 of 465
Romans 3:30

Seeing it is one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith.

Jews and Gentiles have both believed in the same God and in the same Christ.

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Romans 3:31

Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.

Is the law which enjoins us to be circumcised unnecessary? Not at all! On the contrary, we enable it to stand firm when we show that what it said is true, viz., that (spiritual) law would follow after (physical) law, (spiritual) testament after (physical) testament, (spiritual) circumcision after (physical) circumcision.

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Romans 4:1

What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found?

Paul calls the Jews back to the beginning of circumcision, so that what it originally stood for might be fully understood.

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Romans 4:2

For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God.

If Abraham was justified because of his circumcision, then God gave him nothing and he could have gloried in what he did to himself. Or it may mean that if Abraham carried out the ordinances, he had glory in his own eyes but not in God’s.

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Romans 4:3

For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.

Abraham’s faith was so great that his earlier sins were all forgiven him, and righteousness was counted as credit for every one of them by faith alone. Later he was on fire with such love for God that he piled one good work on top of another. Therefore he has glory in God’s eyes.

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Romans 4:5

But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.

When an ungodly person is converted, God justifies him by faith alone, not for good works which he does not have. On that basis he would have been punished for his ungodly works. But note that Paul does not say one who remains in sin is justified by faith but rather the ungodly, i.e., one who has just come to believe.

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Romans 4:6

Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works,

It is a great blessing to obtain the Lord’s grace without the work of the law and penance, as if one were receiving some public honor without having earned it.

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Romans 4:7

Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.

What is forgiven is not retained in the mind, and what is covered does not come to light, and for that reason it is not counted against us.

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Romans 4:8

Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.

Some people say that sin is forgiven in baptism, covered by penitential works and through martyrdom not counted against us. But others say that when sins have been forgiven in baptism, love for God is increased, which covers a multitude of sins and keeps them from being counted against us as long as daily good works surpass past misdeeds.

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Romans 4:9

Cometh this blessedness then upon the circumcision only, or upon the uncircumcision also? for we say that faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness.

Paul means that the blessing is to be found in each of the three periods of nature, circumcision and Christian faith. Everyone agrees that faith was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness. Therefore, what reason discovers about Abraham, we will heed with regard to the rest.

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Romans 4:10

How was it then reckoned? when he was in circumcision, or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision.

Now we must see whether circumcision is born of righteousness or righteousness of circumcision. It must be the former, because Abraham was righteous before he was circumcised.

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Romans 4:11

And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised: that he might be the father of all them that believe, though they be not circumcised; that righteousness might be imputed unto them also:

In case anyone says that Abraham was circumcised unnecessarily, Paul argues that it is the sign or seal of an existing righteousness, not of growth in an unfolding righteousness. This righteousness was so perfect that it deserved a seal, for something that is full is always sealed.

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Romans 4:12

And the father of circumcision to them who are not of the circumcision only, but who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham, which he had being yet uncircumcised.

Therefore all the Gentiles who believe are children of Abraham when faith alone is credited to them as righteousness and they too receive the circumcision—of the heart. Or perhaps this verse should be understood like this: Abraham was righteous in uncircumcision so that he could become the father of uncircumcised believers, and he remained righteous once he was circumcised in order to become the father of the righteous who are circumcised.

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Romans 4:13

For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.

Here Paul calls circumcision the law, because every commandment can be regarded as part of the law. Abraham inherited the world, either because in his seed (viz., Christ) all the nations which were given to him by the Father might be blessed or because the nations would sup with him in the kingdom of heaven.

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Romans 4:14

For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect:

If only the circumcised are heirs, God has not fulfilled his promise to Abraham that he would be the father of many nations, and it will seem that the nations believed in God without any reason.

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Romans 4:15

Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression.

The law brings wrath because it was ordained for the unrighteous, and it weighed sinners down rather than set them free.… Where there is no law there is nothing which can be broken. Or perhaps this means that there is nothing to be punished where the law is not necessary.

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Romans 4:16

Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all,

The law does not forgive sins but condemns them, and therefore it cannot make all nations children of Abraham, because in the end all must be punished since all are found under sin. But faith makes all believers children of Abraham, because their sins have been forgiven by grace.

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Romans 4:17

(As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.

Abraham is the father of all believers, not just of the nation of Israel. “Life to the dead” is given to those who are dead for the purpose of bearing children, which is the context of the present discussion.

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Romans 4:18

Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be.

It was against all natural hope for a hundred-year-old man to believe that his seed would become as numerous as the stars, especially given that his wife had been barren in her youth and was now as feeble as he was.

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Romans 4:19

And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sara's womb:

Faith takes no aspect of nature into account, because it knows that the one who spoke is almighty.

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