CHAPTER THREE: The Revelation of God's Law (part 4 of 4)
The Eighth Commandment
You shall not steal.
The purpose of this commandment is that, because all injustice is displeasing to God, we must render to everyone what properly belongs to him.
Its substance, therefore, is that God forbids us to seek to draw another person’s possessions to ourselves and commands us faithfully to labor to preserve for everyone what is his.
We must understand that what each person possesses did not come to him by chance but through God’s distribution. Therefore, no one can be defrauded of his possessions without violating God’s providential arrangement.
There are many forms of theft. One consists in violence, when another person’s property is forcibly seized and plundered as though by robbery. Another consists in fraud and malice, when someone cunningly impoverishes his neighbor through deceit. Another employs a still more concealed craftiness, depriving someone of his possessions under the appearance of law. Another operates through flattery, when persuasive words are used to obtain, under the title of a gift or by some other means, what rightfully ought to belong to another.
But rather than spend too long cataloguing its various forms, we must briefly observe that every means we employ to enrich ourselves at another’s expense must be regarded as theft whenever it departs from the Christian sincerity that love requires and turns aside into any crookedness, deceit, or harmful dealing.
Although those who act in this manner often win their cases before an earthly judge, God regards them as nothing other than thieves. He sees the schemes crafty men devise from afar to catch the simple in their nets. He sees the severity of the exactions by which the powerful oppress the weak. He sees how poisonous are the flatteries employed by those who sweeten their words to deceive someone—things that often escape human detection.
Moreover, this commandment is transgressed not only when someone is wronged in his money, merchandise, or possessions, but in any right belonging to him. For we defraud our neighbor of his property when we deny him the duties we owe him.
Thus, if a steward, sharecropper, or tenant, instead of watching over his master’s property, lives idly and neglects the interests of the one who supports him; if he wastefully dissipates what has been entrusted to him or consumes it in excess; if a servant mocks his master, divulges his secrets, or plots against his property, reputation, or life; or if, on the other hand, a master treats his household inhumanely—all this is theft before God.
For whoever fails to discharge toward others the duty required by his calling withholds what properly belongs to them.
We shall therefore obey this commandment if, being content with our condition, we seek no gain except what is honest and lawful; if we do not desire to enrich ourselves by injuring our neighbor; if we do not plot his ruin in order to obtain his property; if we do not labor to accumulate wealth from the blood and sweat of others; and if we do not grasp unjustly and indiscriminately at everything possible either to satisfy our avarice or squander it in excess.
On the contrary, we must always aim to assist everyone, as far as we are able, with our counsel and resources in preserving what belongs to him. If we must deal with wicked and deceitful people, we should be prepared to surrender something of our own rather than contend with them through the same malice.
Nor is this all. When we see others suffering poverty, we must share in their need and relieve their necessity from our abundance.
Finally, everyone must consider what duties his office obligates him to perform toward others so that he may discharge them faithfully.
By this same rule, the people must render honor to their superiors, willingly submitting to them, obeying their laws and commands, and refusing nothing they can perform without offending God.
Conversely, superiors must exercise care and diligence in governing their people, maintaining peace everywhere, defending the good, punishing the wicked, and administering their office as those who must give an account to God, the sovereign Judge.
Let ministers of the church faithfully administer the Word of God, neither corrupting the doctrine of salvation nor compromising its purity. Let them instruct the people not only through sound doctrine but also by the example of their lives. In short, let them preside over the sheep as good shepherds.
On the other hand, let the people receive them as messengers and apostles of God, rendering them the honor our Lord assigns to them and providing for their livelihood.
Let parents labor to nurture, instruct, and govern their children as persons entrusted to them by God. They must not treat them so harshly that they lose heart, but sustain them with the gentleness and kindness appropriate to their condition. As has already been stated, children in turn owe their parents reverence and submission.
Likewise, let the young honor the aged, since our Lord has willed that advanced age should be honorable. Let the aged also endeavor to guide the young by their wisdom, not treating them with excessive severity but exercising a gravity tempered by gentleness and kindness.
Let servants render themselves useful to their masters and diligently seek to please them—not merely while being watched, but sincerely from the heart as those who serve God.
Let masters likewise not make themselves excessively harsh and unmanageable toward their servants, oppressing them with severity or treating them contemptuously. Rather, let them recognize them as brothers and fellow servants of God and therefore treat them humanely.
In this manner, let everyone consider what he owes his neighbors according to his station and position and render them their due.
Moreover, we must always direct our attention toward the Lawgiver so that we remember that this rule is ordained for the soul no less than for the body. Thus, everyone must apply his will to preserving and advancing the welfare and advantage of all men.
The Ninth Commandment
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
The purpose of this commandment is that, because God is truth and abhors falsehood, we must uphold truth without deceit.
Its substance, therefore, is that we must not injure anyone’s reputation through slander or false reports, nor harm him in his possessions. In short, we must not wrong anyone either by speaking evil of him or by holding him up to ridicule.
Corresponding to this prohibition is the positive command that we faithfully assist everyone in upholding the truth, whether to preserve his property or his reputation.
It appears that our Lord intended to explain the meaning of this commandment in Exodus 23 when he said:
“You shall not uphold a false report, nor join with another to bear false witness in support of a lie.”
Again:
“You shall flee from every falsehood.”
Elsewhere he forbids us not only to spread malicious reports, defame, and slander others but also to deceive our brother, for he expressly mentions both offenses (Leviticus 19).
There is no doubt that, just as he previously sought to correct cruelty, sexual impurity, and avarice, he here intends to restrain falsehood, which is comprehended under the two categories already mentioned. For either we injure our neighbor’s reputation by speaking evil of him, or we hinder his welfare through lies and deceitful words.
It matters little whether this commandment is understood specifically of solemn testimony given in court or of statements made privately. For we must always return to this principle: from every category of vice, our Lord sets forth one particular form as an example, to which all the others must be referred, and he chooses the form in which the vice’s shamefulness appears most clearly.
Nevertheless, I prefer to understand the commandment generally, since false testimony in court is never given without perjury, and perjury has already been addressed in the first table.
We now see that properly observing this commandment requires us to employ our speech truthfully for our neighbor’s benefit, both to preserve his reputation and to protect his interests.
The equity of this is evident. For if a good reputation is more precious than any treasure, a man is no less wronged when deprived of his good name than when stripped of his possessions. Indeed, a neighbor may sometimes suffer greater injury through falsehood than through theft.
Nevertheless, it is astonishing how little concern men show about offending in this matter. Very few are not deeply infected with this vice, for everyone is inclined to scrutinize and expose the faults of others.
Nor should we imagine it a sufficient excuse to say that we have not lied. For he who forbids us to defame our neighbor through falsehood also wills that his reputation should be preserved insofar as truth permits. Although the commandment expressly forbids only injuring his reputation by falsehood, it thereby signifies that his good name is precious to God.
It ought to be sufficient for us to see that our Lord takes care that our neighbor should not be defamed. Therefore, all malicious detraction is undoubtedly condemned here.
By detraction, we do not mean a rebuke intended to correct someone; a judicial accusation intended to remedy wrongdoing; a public correction administered to one person to warn others; or a warning concerning a wicked person given to those who need to know his character lest they be deceived by him. Rather, we mean hateful injury proceeding from malice or a desire to speak evil.
Moreover, this commandment extends so far that we must not cultivate a reputation for wit by gracefully taunting and wounding others in jest, as some do who take great delight in putting someone to shame. For through such intemperance, a lasting stain is often left upon the person who has been ridiculed.
If we now consider the Lawgiver, who ought to rule over our ears and hearts no less than over our tongues, we shall recognize that the desire to hear slanderers, the readiness to give them an audience, and the willingness to believe their evil reports are no less forbidden than slander itself.
For it would be absurd to say that God hates the tongue’s malicious speech but does not condemn the heart’s malignity.
Therefore, if we possess true fear and love of God, let us endeavor—as far as possible and appropriate, and as love requires—not to lend either our ears or our tongues to reproach, detraction, or mockery. Let us not readily admit evil suspicions into our hearts. Instead, interpreting everyone’s words and actions in the best possible light, let us preserve each person’s honor in every way.
The Tenth Commandment
You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not desire his wife, his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to him.
The purpose of this commandment is that, because God wills our entire soul to be filled and possessed by the affection of love, every contrary desire must be cast out of our hearts.
Its substance, therefore, is that no thought should enter our minds that might stir our hearts toward a desire harmful or injurious to our neighbor.
Corresponding to this prohibition is the positive command that whatever we conceive, deliberate, desire, or pursue must be joined with the welfare and advantage of our neighbor.
But a considerable difficulty arises here. For if what we previously said is true—that in forbidding adultery and theft, our Lord thereby forbade impurity and every intention to harm, deceive, or rob—it might appear unnecessary for him now separately to prohibit coveting another person’s possessions.
We can resolve this question by considering the difference between a settled intention and covetous desire. By a settled intention, we mean a deliberate purpose of the will after the human heart has been conquered and subjected by temptation. Covetous desire may exist without such deliberation or consent, when the heart is merely enticed and incited to commit some evil.
Therefore, as the Lord previously required man’s intentions, undertakings, and actions to be governed by the rule of love, he now requires that the very thoughts of the mind be directed according to the same rule so that none may arise to incite us to the contrary.
As he previously forbade the heart to be led into anger, hatred, adultery, robbery, and falsehood, so he now forbids it even to be provoked or moved toward them.
It is not without reason that he requires such perfect uprightness. For who will deny that every faculty of the soul ought rightly to be devoted to love? And if any faculty is turned away from love, who will deny that it has become corrupt?
From where does any desire harmful to your neighbor enter your mind except that, neglecting others, you seek only your own advantage? For if your whole heart were occupied by love, no such imagination could enter it. We must therefore conclude that the heart is empty of love insofar as it entertains such desires.
Someone will object, however, that it is improper to condemn as covetous desires those fantasies that flit through the mind and then vanish, since covetousness has its seat within the heart.
I answer that we are speaking here of imaginations that do not merely pass through the mind but also prick the heart with desire. For we never conceive any desire or wish in our thoughts without the heart being touched and inflamed by it.
Our Lord therefore commands a marvelous fervency of love which he will not permit to be hindered by even the slightest sinful desire. He requires a wonderfully well-ordered heart that he will not permit to be pricked in the least by any impulse contrary to the law of love.
Saint Augustine opened the way for me to understand this commandment, lest anyone imagine that I stand alone in my interpretation.
Although God’s intention was to forbid every evil desire, he nevertheless selected as examples those objects that most commonly attract and deceive us.
In doing so, he allows nothing to human desire, since he withdraws it from those objects toward which it is chiefly inclined.
We now have the second table of the law, which fully instructs us concerning what we owe to men for the sake of God, upon whom love is founded. Therefore, one might continually repeat everything taught in this second table, but it would accomplish nothing unless this doctrine were first established upon the fear and reverence of God as its foundation.
It will not now be difficult to determine the purpose of the law: perfect righteousness, by which human life is conformed to the purity of God as its pattern.
For our Lord has so portrayed his nature in the law that if anyone fulfilled what is commanded, he would represent the image of God in his life.
Therefore, when Moses wished briefly to remind the people of Israel of God’s commandments, he said:
“And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you except that you fear him and walk in his ways; that you love and serve him with all your heart and all your soul; and that you keep his commandments?”
Moses never ceased repeating this whenever he wished to declare the purpose of the law.
This, then, is the aim of the law’s doctrine: to unite man to his God through holiness of life and, as Moses says elsewhere, to cause him to cleave to God (Deuteronomy 11).
The fulfillment of this holiness consists in two things: that we love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and strength, and then our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22).
The first is that our soul should be entirely filled with love for God. From this will follow love for our neighbor.
This is what the Apostle means when he says that the end of the commandment is love proceeding from a pure conscience and sincere faith (1 Timothy 1). We see how a good conscience and faith—in a word, piety and the fear of God—are placed first as the head, from which love toward our neighbor is then derived.
It would therefore be foolish to imagine that the law teaches only certain rudiments of righteousness, merely introducing men to its beginnings without conducting them along the path of perfection. For we could desire no greater perfection than that comprehended in the statements of Moses and Saint Paul.
Where would anyone wish to proceed who was not content with instruction that directs and forms man toward the fear of God, the spiritual worship of his majesty, obedience to his commandments, the uprightness of God and his ways, purity of conscience, sincerity of faith, and love?
This confirms the interpretation we have given, by which we refer to the commandments of the law everything required for piety and love. For those who stop at certain elementary principles, as though the law taught God’s will only in part, do not properly understand its purpose, as the Apostle says.
Nevertheless, because Christ and his Apostles, when summarizing the law, sometimes make no mention of the first table, we must say a word about this. Many are mistaken by applying to the whole law words that concern only half of it.
In Saint Matthew, Christ says that the weightier matters of the law consist in mercy, judgment, and faithfulness (Matthew 23). By faithfulness, there is no doubt that he means truth or integrity. Nevertheless, in order to extend this statement to the entire law, some interpret faithfulness as religion. This is groundless, for Christ is speaking there of the works by which a man ought to demonstrate his righteousness.
If we observe this principle, we shall not be surprised that elsewhere, when asked which commandments must be observed to enter eternal life, he answers by listing the following:
“You shall not kill. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. You shall honor your father and mother. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
For the observance of the first table consisted either in the inward affection of the heart or in ceremonies. The heart’s affection could not be seen, while hypocrites observed the ceremonies more diligently than anyone else. Works of love, therefore, provide a more certain testimony of righteousness.
But someone will ask whether living honorably and faithfully among men is more important for obtaining righteousness than fearing God and honoring him through piety.
I answer that it is not. Yet because no one can truly preserve love in its entirety unless he first fears God, works of love also provide evidence of a person’s piety.
Moreover, since God cannot receive any benefit from us, as he declares through his Prophet, he does not require us to labor to do good to him. Instead, he exercises us in good works toward our neighbor (Psalm 16).
It is therefore not without reason that Saint Paul places the believer’s entire perfection in love (Ephesians 1). In another passage, he calls love the fulfillment of the law, saying that the person who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law (Romans 13).
He then says that the whole law is comprehended in this statement:
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
He teaches nothing beyond what the Lord says in this declaration:
“Whatever you would have others do to you, do the same to them, for this is the law and the Prophets.”
It is certain that both the law and the Prophets give first place to faith and reverence for God’s name, and afterward commend love toward our neighbor. But the Lord means that there we are commanded to practice uprightness and equity toward men as evidence that the fear of God truly resides within us.
Let us therefore hold firmly to this point: our life is properly ordered according to God’s will and the commandment of his law when it is beneficial in every way to our brethren.
Conversely, throughout the whole law not a single syllable is found instructing man what he ought to do or refrain from doing for his own advantage. Indeed, since men are naturally far more inclined to love themselves than they ought to be, there was no need to give them a commandment inflaming them toward a love that already exceeded all proper measure.
It is therefore evident that the observance of the commandments consists not in love of ourselves but in love of God and our neighbor. Consequently, the person lives best who lives for himself as little as possible, while no one lives more disorderly than the person who lives for himself and thinks only of his own advantage.
Indeed, to express more clearly the affection of love we owe our neighbor, the Lord refers us to the love we bear ourselves and sets it before us as a rule and pattern. This must be carefully considered.
We must not understand this comparison as certain Sophists have done, supposing that Christ commands everyone first to love himself and afterward his neighbor. Rather, he intended to transfer to others the love we naturally direct toward ourselves.
Therefore, the Apostle says that love does not seek its own advantage (1 Corinthians 13).
Their argument is not worth a straw: that the rule must precede the thing measured by it, and that our Lord measures love for our neighbor according to self-love.
I answer that our Lord does not establish self-love as a superior rule to which love for our neighbor, being inferior, must be conformed. Rather, because through our natural perversity our love rested upon ourselves, he shows that it must be extended elsewhere, so that we may be no less ready to do good to others than to ourselves.
Moreover, since Jesus Christ, in the parable of the Samaritan, showed that even the greatest stranger in the world is included under the name neighbor, we must not restrict the commandment of love to those connected to us by some bond or affinity (Luke 10).
I do not deny that the more closely someone is joined to us, the more readily and intimately we ought to assist him. The rule of humanity requires that the closer the bonds of kinship, friendship, or neighborhood joining us together, the more obligations we have toward one another. We may observe this without offending God, whose providence leads us to do so.
Nevertheless, I maintain that we must embrace all men without exception in the affection of love. We must make no distinction between Greek and barbarian, consider neither whether they are worthy or unworthy nor whether they are friends or enemies. For we must consider them in God, not in themselves.
When we turn away from this consideration, it is no wonder that we fall into many errors. Therefore, if we would maintain the right course of love, we must not fix our eyes upon men themselves, whose qualities would often compel us to hate rather than love them.
Instead, we must look to God, who commands us to extend toward all men the love we bear him.
Thus, we must always retain this foundation: whoever the man may be, we must nevertheless love him if we love God.
It was therefore either pernicious ignorance or malice when the scholastic doctors transformed our Lord’s commandments not to seek vengeance and to love our enemies into mere counsels, which they say we are free either to obey or disregard.
They declared that only monks were necessarily bound to observe these commandments. They attributed to monks a more perfect righteousness than to ordinary Christians because monks bound themselves to keep what they called the “evangelical counsels.”
Their reason for refusing to regard these things as commandments was that they were too burdensome and difficult, even for Christians living under the law of grace.
But do they truly dare to abolish God’s eternal law concerning love for our neighbor? Can any such distinction be found anywhere in Scripture? Do we not instead find the very opposite—many commandments strictly requiring us to love our enemies?
For what does it mean that we must feed our enemy when he is hungry; that we must lead his ox and donkey back to the road when they have strayed; and that we must raise them when they have fallen beneath their burdens? Shall we show kindness to our enemies’ animals while bearing no love toward the enemies themselves? (Proverbs 25; Exodus 23).
What then? Is it not God’s eternal word that vengeance belongs to him alone and that he will render to everyone what is due (Deuteronomy 32)?
This is stated still more expressly elsewhere:
“You shall not seek vengeance or retain the memory of injuries done to you by your neighbors.”
Either let them erase these passages from Scripture or confess that God intended to act as Lawgiver by commanding these things, not merely as a counselor, as they imagine.
Moreover, what do these words mean, which they have corrupted by a foolish gloss?
“Love your enemies,” says our Lord. “Do good to those who hate you, pray for those who persecute you, and bless those who speak evil of you, that you may be children of your Father who is in heaven.”
Who could fail to conclude with Chrysostom that, because the reason attached is so necessary, these are not counsels but commandments? What remains for us if our Lord removes us from the number of his children?
According to the opinion of these rabbis, monks alone will be children of God and may dare to call upon him as their Father. What, meanwhile, will become of the church? By this reasoning, it will be sent away among the pagans and publicans.
For our Lord immediately adds:
“If you love only those who love you, what reward do you expect? The pagans and publicans do the same.”
We shall have reached a fine condition indeed if we retain the title of Christians while being deprived of the heavenly inheritance!
Such teachers plainly reveal themselves to be children of Satan when they so boldly cast off the yoke common to all God’s children.
Indeed, I do not know whether I should marvel more at their stupidity or their shamelessness in publishing this doctrine. For none of the ancient writers hesitates to pronounce it a settled matter that these are all commandments. We see that there was still no doubt about this in Saint Gregory’s time, since without hesitation he numbers them among the commandments.
But let us see how foolishly they argue. “This would be too heavy a burden for Christians,” they say—as though anything more burdensome could be imagined than loving God with all our heart, soul, and strength.
Compared with that commandment, nothing is difficult, whether we are required to love our enemy or relinquish every desire for vengeance. Indeed, everything in the law, down to its smallest point, is lofty and difficult for our weakness.
God alone enables us to walk uprightly. Let him give what he commands and command whatever he wills.
When they say that Christians are under the law of grace, this does not mean that Christians may live disorderly with the reins loosened. It means that they have been incorporated into Christ, by whose grace they are freed from the curse of the law and by whose Spirit the law is written upon their hearts.
Saint Paul calls this grace a law in an improper sense because he wishes to preserve the comparison he had established between the two. But these foolish men groundlessly imagine some great mystery in the word law.
What they have said about venial sin is equally irrational. They call both concealed impiety against God, which violates the first table of the law, and the direct transgression of the final commandment “venial sin.”
For this is their definition: venial sin is an evil desire that arises without deliberate consent and does not remain long within the heart.
I maintain, on the contrary, that no evil desire can enter the heart except because something required by the law is lacking.
We are forbidden to have foreign gods. When the soul, tempted by distrust, looks here and there and wavers; when it is moved to seek its blessedness anywhere other than in God—from where do these movements arise, however slight they may be, except that there is some emptiness within the soul that permits such temptations?
To avoid a lengthy argument, we are commanded to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind. Therefore, unless every power and faculty of the soul is devoted to loving God, we have departed from obedience to the law.
For when temptations hostile and contrary to God’s kingdom possess enough strength to unsettle us or place even the slightest impediment within our minds, preventing God from being entirely obeyed and his will from being fulfilled without resistance, this is a sign that his kingdom has not been firmly established within our consciences.
Moreover, we have shown that the final commandment properly concerns this very matter. Has any evil desire pricked our heart? We are already guilty of covetousness and consequently transgressors of the law.
For the Lord has forbidden not only deliberate schemes and designs harmful to our neighbor but also our being stimulated or inflamed by any such desire. Wherever the law is transgressed, the curse of God is prepared.
We must not, therefore, exempt even the slightest desires from the condemnation of death.
I wish such people would consider what Christ means when he says:
“Whoever breaks one of the least commandments and teaches others to do likewise shall be of no esteem in the kingdom of heaven.”
Are they not among those people when they dare to diminish the transgression of the law as though it were not worthy of death?
They ought to consider not merely what is commanded but who it is that commands. For there is no transgression so small that it does not detract from his authority. Is it a trivial matter, in their estimation, that God’s majesty should be violated in any respect?
Moreover, if the Lord has declared his will in the law, everything contrary to the law displeases him. Do they imagine God’s wrath so feeble and disarmed that vengeance does not immediately follow?
Indeed, he has declared this plainly enough, if only they could bring themselves to hear his voice rather than obscure his truth with their frivolous subtleties:
“The soul that sins shall surely die.”
Again:
“The wages of sin is death.”
These men acknowledge that sinful desire is sin because they cannot deny it, yet they maintain that it is not mortal sin.
Since they have persisted so long in their folly, let them at least amend it now. But if they determine to persevere in their obstinacy, let the children of God leave them to it and acknowledge that every sin is mortal.
For every sin is rebellion against the will of God, which necessarily provokes his wrath, and every sin is a transgression of the law, against which eternal death is pronounced without exception.
As for the sins committed by the saints and believers, they are indeed venial—but this is because of God’s mercy, not because of their own nature.
From what we established above—that the law instructs us in perfect righteousness—it likewise follows that the complete observance of the law is complete righteousness before God, by which a man may be accounted righteous before his heavenly throne.
Therefore, after publishing the law, Moses does not hesitate to call heaven and earth as witnesses that he has set before the people of Israel life and death, good and evil (Deuteronomy 30).
Nor can we deny that complete obedience to the law is rewarded with eternal life, as the Lord has promised. Nevertheless, we must also consider whether we render such obedience that we may derive from it any confidence of salvation.
For what benefit is there in knowing that eternal life may be expected as the reward of obedience to the law unless we also know whether we can attain salvation by this means?
Here the law’s inability to save us is revealed. Because such obedience is found in none of us, we are excluded from the promises of life and fall under the eternal curse.
I speak not merely of what actually occurs, but of what must necessarily occur. For because the law’s doctrine far surpasses human ability, we may indeed behold its promises from a distance, but we can derive no benefit from them.
Nothing therefore comes to us from the law except a clearer perception of our misery, since every hope of salvation is removed from us and death is revealed.
On the other side stand its dreadful threats, which press not merely some of us but everyone without exception. They press and pursue us with inexorable severity, so that in the law we behold a certain curse.
Therefore, if we look only to the law, we can do nothing but lose all courage, become overwhelmed with confusion, and despair. For in it we are all cursed and condemned, and none of us is included in the blessedness promised to those who observe it.
Someone will ask whether God delights in deceiving us. For it appears to be mockery to show man some hope of happiness, call and exhort him toward it, and promise that it is prepared for him, while access to it remains closed.
I answer that although the law’s promises, being conditional, are fulfilled only for those who have accomplished perfect righteousness —which is found in no human being—they were nevertheless not given in vain.
For once we understand that they possess no validity or efficacy toward us unless God receives us through his free goodness without regard to our works, and once by faith we have received that goodness offered to us in the gospel, these same promises, with their conditions, are not empty.
For then the Lord freely gives us all things. His kindness extends so far that he does not reject our imperfect obedience. Rather, forgiving and pardoning what is lacking in it, he accepts it as good and complete and consequently permits us to receive the fruit of the law’s promises as though their condition had been fulfilled.
But because this question will be treated more fully when we discuss justification by faith, I will not pursue it further at present.
We must now explain and confirm more briefly our assertion that observing the law is impossible. For this statement appears so absurd to some that Saint Jerome did not hesitate to condemn it as wicked. I am not concerned with the reason that moved him to do so; it is enough for us to understand the truth.
I shall not introduce elaborate distinctions concerning different kinds of possibility. I call impossible that which has never been seen and which, according to God’s decree, never shall be.
If we examine the whole period since the beginning of the world, I maintain that among all the saints there has never been one who, while confined within this prison of a mortal body, possessed such perfect love that he loved God with all his heart, soul, and strength.
I maintain further that there has never been one who was not stained by some sinful desire. Who can contradict this?
I am well aware what sort of saints superstition imagines: persons of such purity that even the angels of heaven could scarcely equal them. But this conflicts both with Scripture and with experience.
I maintain still further that there never shall be anyone who attains such perfection until he is delivered from his body. This is proved by many clear testimonies of Scripture.
At the dedication of the temple, Solomon declared:
“There is no man on earth who does not sin.”
David says:
“No one living shall be justified before you.”
This statement is frequently repeated in the book of Job. Saint Paul affirms it more clearly than all the others:
“The flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh.”
Nor does he offer any other reason to prove that all who are under the law are accursed than this declaration:
“Cursed is everyone who does not continue in obedience to all the commandments.”
By this he signifies—or rather assumes as an established fact—that no one can continue in such obedience.
Now whatever Scripture has foretold must be regarded as certain forever, and indeed as necessary. The Pelagians troubled Saint Augustine with this subtlety. To avoid their accusation, he acknowledged that the Lord could, if he wished, raise a mortal man to angelic perfection, but that he had never done so and never would, because he had declared the contrary.
I do not oppose this statement, but I add that there is no sense in setting God’s power against his truth. Therefore this proposition cannot rightly be disputed: that those things which the Lord has declared shall never occur may properly be called impossible.
Yet even if the dispute concerns merely the word impossible, Jesus Christ himself, when asked by his disciples who could be saved, answered:
“With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
Saint Augustine demonstrates by sound arguments that in this present life we never render to God the love we owe him. Love, he says, proceeds from knowledge in such a way that no one can love God perfectly unless he has first known his goodness perfectly.
But while we remain on this earthly pilgrimage, we see his goodness only dimly, as in a mirror (1 Corinthians 13:12). It therefore follows that the love we bear him is imperfect.
Let us therefore hold this as certain: the fulfilment of the law is impossible for us while we live in this world, as will elsewhere be demonstrated from Saint Paul.
But in order that the whole matter may be more clearly understood, let us summarize the office and use of the law, which, so far as I can judge, consists of three parts.
The first is that by revealing the righteousness of God—that is, the righteousness acceptable to him—the law warns each person of his own unrighteousness, makes him certain of it, and finally convicts and condemns him. For man, who is otherwise blinded and intoxicated by self-love, must be compelled to recognize and confess both his weakness and his impurity.
Unless his vanity is visibly exposed, he is swollen with a foolish confidence in his own strength. Nor can he be brought to recognize its weakness and insufficiency while he measures it according to his own imagination. But when he attempts to obey the law of God, the difficulty he encounters gives him reason to humble his pride. For however highly he may formerly have esteemed his powers, he then feels how heavily they are burdened beneath so great a weight, until they stagger, waver, collapse, and finally fail altogether. Thus, instructed by the doctrine of the law, man is stripped of the selfconfidence with which he is naturally filled.
He must also be cleansed of that other vice of arrogance of which we have spoken. For so long as he relies upon his own judgment, he invents hypocrisy in place of true righteousness. Delighting in this, he proudly sets himself against the grace of God under the pretense of certain observances devised by his own mind.
But when he is compelled to examine his life according to the standard of God’s law, he abandons the conception he had formed of this false righteousness. He sees how exceedingly far he is removed from true holiness and, on the contrary, how full he is of vices from which he formerly imagined himself free. For sinful desires are so deeply concealed and entangled that they easily escape man’s notice.
It is not without reason that the apostle says:
“I would not have known what covetousness was unless the law had said, ‘You shall not covet.’”
For unless covetousness is exposed by the law and drawn out of its hiding places, it kills the wretched man without his even perceiving it.
The law is therefore like a mirror in which we behold first our weakness, then the iniquity arising from it, and finally the curse proceeding from both—just as in a mirror we perceive the blemishes upon our face.
For the man who lacks every ability to live righteously can do nothing but remain in the mire of sin. After sin follows the curse. Therefore, the more fully the law convicts us of transgression, the more it reveals us to be condemned and deserving of greater punishment.
This is what the apostle means when he says:
“Through the law comes the knowledge of sin.”
Here he identifies the law’s first office, which it performs toward sinners who have not yet been regenerated.
The following statements have the same meaning: that the law entered so that sin might increase (Romans 5:20); and therefore that it is a ministry of death, which produces the wrath of God and kills us (2 Corinthians 3:7; Romans 4:15).
For there is no doubt that the more closely the conscience is touched by an understanding of its sin, the more iniquity increases at the same time, since rebellion against the Lawgiver is then joined to transgression.
It follows that the law arms God’s vengeance for the destruction of the sinner, since of itself it can do nothing but accuse, condemn, and destroy. As Saint Augustine says, if the Spirit of grace is removed, the law serves no other purpose than to accuse and kill.
Yet in saying this, we do no injury to the law, nor do we detract anything from its excellence. Certainly, if our will were wholly grounded and ordered in obedience to it, the mere knowledge of its doctrine would be sufficient for our salvation.
But since our nature, being corrupt and carnal, is directly opposed to the spiritual law of God and cannot be corrected by its discipline, it follows that the law, which would have been given for salvation if it had been rightly received, becomes for us an occasion of sin and death.
For since we are all convicted of transgressing it, the more clearly it reveals God’s righteousness, the more fully it exposes our unrighteousness. The more certainly it assures us of the reward prepared for righteousness, the more certainly it assures us also of the condemnation prepared for the unrighteous.
Therefore, so far are we from doing any injury to the law by these statements that we could not better commend the goodness of God. For it thereby becomes evident that our own perversity alone prevents us from obtaining the eternal blessedness offered to us in the law.
This gives us reason to value more highly the grace of God, which supplies what the law lacks, and to love more deeply his mercy, by which that grace is bestowed upon us. For we see that he never grows weary of doing us good, but continually adds blessing upon blessing.
Now, when our unrighteousness and condemnation are exposed and confirmed by the testimony of the law, this is not done so that we should fall into despair and, having entirely lost heart, abandon ourselves to destruction. Such an outcome will not occur if we make proper use of the law. It is true that the wicked are driven to despair in this way, but that arises from the obstinacy of their hearts.
The children of God, however, must reach a different end. They must understand what Saint Paul teaches when he acknowledges that we are all condemned by the law:
“So that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.”
Again, in another place he teaches that God has confined all under unbelief, not that he might destroy them or leave them to perish, but:
“That he might have mercy upon all.”
That is, having laid aside every vain confidence in their own strength, they must recognize that they are sustained by his hand alone. Moreover, being left entirely empty and destitute, they must flee to his mercy, rest wholly upon it, hide themselves beneath its shelter, and embrace it alone as their righteousness and merit—as it is offered in Jesus Christ to all who seek, desire, and await it by true faith.
For in the law the Lord appears as the rewarder only of perfect righteousness, of which we are all destitute. Conversely, he reveals himself as the severe executor of the punishments due to our sins. But in Christ his face shines upon us, full of grace and gentleness, although we are poor and unworthy sinners.
Concerning the instruction we ought to receive from the law, so that we may be led to implore God’s help, Saint Augustine frequently speaks in this manner:
“The law commands so that, after striving to fulfil its commandments and failing through our weakness, we may learn to implore the help of God.”
Again:
“The usefulness of the law is to convince man of his weakness and compel him to seek the medicine of grace, which is in Christ.”
Again:
“The law commands; grace gives strength to do what is good.”
Again:
“God commands what we cannot do so that we may know what we ought to ask from him.”
As for the second benefit of the law, Saint Augustine does not declare it so expressly—perhaps because he thought that the one could be understood from the other, or perhaps because he was not so fully settled concerning it.
Now, although the benefit of which we have spoken properly belongs to the children of God, it is nevertheless shared also by the reprobate. For although they do not reach the point attained by believers—being humbled according to the flesh so that they may receive spiritual strength from the Spirit—but instead collapse entirely in terror and despair, it nevertheless serves to reveal the equity of God’s judgment that their consciences should be tormented in this way.
For they continually attempt, as far as they can, to evade the judgment of God. Yet although that judgment has not yet been openly manifested, they are so overwhelmed by the testimony of the law and of their own conscience that they reveal what they have deserved.
The second office of the law is this: that those who care to do what is right only under compulsion, upon hearing its dreadful threats, may at least be restrained from wickedness by fear of punishment.
They are restrained, not because their hearts are inwardly moved or affected, but because they are held in check, as by a bridle, from carrying out the evil desires that they would otherwise fulfil with unrestrained license.
This does not make them any more righteous or better before God. For although fear or shame restrains them so that they dare not carry out what they have conceived in their hearts or unleash the fury of their intemperance, their hearts are not thereby brought into the fear and obedience of God.
Indeed, the more they restrain themselves, the more they burn and rage inwardly in their lusts, ready to commit every wicked and shameful deed if the terror of the law did not hold them back. Not only do their hearts remain evil, but they also mortally hate the law of God; and because God is its author, they abhor him. If it were within their power, they would gladly abolish him, since they cannot endure his commanding what is good, holy, and upright, or his avenging himself upon those who despise his majesty.
This disposition appears more openly in some and remains more concealed in others, but it exists in all who have not been regenerated. They submit to the law only after a fashion—not willingly, but under compulsion and with great resistance. Nothing constrains them except their fear of God’s severity.
Nevertheless, this constrained and forced righteousness is necessary for human society. The Lord provides for its peace by preventing everything from being overturned into confusion, as would happen if everyone were permitted to do whatever he pleased.
Moreover, it is not useless for the children of God to be governed by this elementary discipline during the time when they do not yet possess the Spirit of God but live according to the folly of their flesh. For it sometimes happens that the Lord does not immediately reveal himself to his elect, but allows them to walk in ignorance for a time before calling them.
During that period, though they make little present progress because their hearts have not yet been tamed and subdued, they are nevertheless restrained from complete dissolution by this servile fear. Thus they are gradually accustomed to bearing the Lord’s yoke, so that when he calls them they are not wholly unprepared to submit to his commandments as something new and unknown.
It is likely that the apostle intended to describe this office of the law when he said that the law was not given for the righteous, but for the lawless and rebellious, the ungodly and sinners, the unholy and profane, murderers of fathers and mothers, manslayers, the sexually immoral, thieves, liars, perjurers, and all who practice anything contrary to sound doctrine (1 Timothy 1:9–10).
He thereby shows that the law is like a bridle restraining the desires of the flesh, which would otherwise burst forth without measure.
The third use, which is the principal one and belongs most properly to the purpose for which the law was given, has its place among believers, in whose hearts the Spirit of God already reigns and exercises his power.
For although they have the law written upon their hearts by the finger of God—that is, although under the guidance of the Holy Spirit they possess the desire to obey God—they nevertheless benefit from the law in two ways.
First, it is an excellent instrument by which they may learn more fully and certainly, day by day, what the will of God is toward which they aspire, and by which they may be confirmed in the knowledge of it.
Just as a servant, although fully resolved in his heart to serve his master faithfully and please him in every respect, must nevertheless become thoroughly acquainted with his character and carefully consider his wishes in order to conform himself to them, so none of us should imagine himself exempt from this necessity.
For no one has yet attained such wisdom that he cannot, through daily instruction in the law, advance from day to day and acquire a clearer understanding of God’s will.
Moreover, because we need not only instruction but also exhortation, the servant of God will derive this benefit from the law: by frequently meditating upon it, he will be stirred to obedience, strengthened in it, and drawn back from his faults.
For the saints must urge themselves onward in this way. However eager they may be to devote themselves to doing good, they are continually hindered by the sluggishness and heaviness of their flesh, so that they never fully perform their duty.
To this flesh the law serves as a whip, driving it to work like a donkey that refuses to move forward unless continually struck. Or, to speak more plainly, since the spiritual man has not yet been delivered from the burden of his flesh, the law serves as a perpetual goad, preventing him from falling asleep or growing sluggish.
David had this use in view when he celebrated the law of God with such great praises:
“The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; the commandments of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.” —Psalm 19:7–8
Again:
“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to direct my path.”
The same is true of all that follows in that psalm.
This does not conflict with the statements of Saint Paul cited above, where he shows not what benefit the law brings to a believer who has already been regenerated, but what the law can accomplish in man by itself.
David, by contrast, shows how profitably the Lord instructs his servants in the doctrine of his law when he inwardly inspires them with the desire to follow it.
Some ignorant persons, being unable to discern this distinction, rashly reject Moses and insist that the law should be abandoned. For they do not think it fitting for Christians to attend to a doctrine that in itself contains a ministry of death.
Such an opinion must be far removed from us, since Moses clearly declared that although the law can produce nothing but death in sinful man, it nevertheless brings a very different benefit to believers. As he approached death, he made this declaration before the people:
“Take to heart all the words by which I testify to you today, so that you may teach them to your children and instruct them carefully to observe everything written in this book. For these things have not been commanded to you in vain, but so that you may live by them.”
Indeed, if no one can deny that the law contains a complete image of perfect righteousness, then we must say either that we ought to have no rule for living well or that we must adhere to this one. For there are not many rules for a godly life, but only one, which is perpetual and unchangeable.
Therefore, David’s declaration that the righteous man meditates upon the law day and night must not be confined to one age, but applies to every generation until the end of the world (Psalm 1:2).
Nor should we be troubled that the law requires a more perfect holiness than we can attain while confined within the prison of the body, so that on this account we abandon its teaching.
For while we are under the grace of God, the law does not exercise its severity by pressing us to the utmost, as though nothing could satisfy it unless we perfectly fulfilled everything it commands. Rather, by exhorting us toward the perfection to which it calls us, it shows us the goal toward which we must strive throughout our lives.
If we never cease striving toward that goal, this is sufficient. For this whole life is like a race. When we reach its end, the Lord will grant us the blessing of attaining the goal we now pursue, although we are still far from it.
Now, because the law serves to exhort believers—not to bind their consciences under the curse, but to awaken them from sluggishness by urging them onward and correcting their imperfection—some, wishing to express this deliverance from its curse, say that the law has been abrogated and annulled for believers.
They do not mean that it no longer continually commands them to do what is good and holy, but that it is no longer to them what it formerly was: namely, that it no longer overwhelms their consciences with the terror of death.
Indeed, Saint Paul clearly teaches such an abrogation of the law. Moreover, it appears that this teaching was attributed to Jesus Christ, since he defended himself against the charge that he intended to destroy or dissolve the law—something he would not have done unless he had been accused of it (Matthew 5:17).
This opinion would not have arisen without some appearance of plausibility. It is therefore likely that it proceeded from a false interpretation of his teaching, just as nearly all errors take their occasion from some truth.
But to keep ourselves from falling into this error, we must carefully distinguish between what has been abrogated in the law and what still remains firmly established.
When the Lord Jesus says:
“I have not come to abolish the law, but to fulfil it.”
And again:
“Not one letter of it shall pass away until heaven and earth pass away and everything written in it is fulfilled.”
He shows that his coming has in no way diminished the reverence and obedience due to the law. And rightly so, since he came to provide a remedy for its transgressions.
Therefore, the doctrine of the law is in no way violated by Jesus Christ. It continues to train us in every good work by teaching, admonishing, reproving, and correcting us.
What Saint Paul says concerning the curse does not relate to the law’s office of instruction, but to its power to bind and enslave the conscience. For the law, by its nature, not only teaches but strictly demands everything it commands. If it is not obeyed—and indeed, if its demands are not fulfilled to the very last point—it immediately pronounces its dreadful sentence of condemnation.
For this reason the apostle says that all who are under the law are accursed, because it is written:
“Cursed is everyone who does not fulfil everything that is commanded.”
He consequently identifies as being under the law all those who do not establish their righteousness in the forgiveness of sins, by which we are delivered from the law’s severity.
We must therefore escape from these bonds unless we wish to perish miserably in captivity. But from what bonds? From that rigorous demand by which the law pursues us without making any allowance and without leaving a single fault unpunished.
To redeem us from this wretched curse, Christ was made a curse for us, as it is written:
“Cursed is everyone who hangs upon a tree.”
—Galatians 3:13; Deuteronomy 21:23
In the following chapter Saint Paul says that Christ was made subject to the law in order to redeem those who were under its bondage. But he immediately adds:
“So that we might receive adoption as sons.”
What does this mean? That we should no longer remain imprisoned in the captivity that held our consciences bound in the anguish of death.
Nevertheless, the authority of the law always remains unimpaired, so that we must continually receive it with the same honor and reverence.
There is somewhat greater difficulty in another passage, found in the Epistle to the Colossians:
“When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with Christ, forgiving you all your trespasses, blotting out the handwriting of decrees that stood against us and was contrary to us, and fastening it to the cross.”
For Saint Paul appears to extend the abrogation of the law further, as though its decrees no longer concerned us in any way.
Some understand this passage solely of the moral law, though they explain that it is not the law’s doctrine that has been abolished, but its excessive severity. Others, considering Saint Paul’s words more carefully, recognize that they properly refer to the ceremonial law and observe that Saint Paul commonly uses the word decrees when speaking of it. For in the Epistle to the Ephesians he says:
“Jesus Christ is our peace, who has united us together, abolishing the law of commandments contained in decrees.” —Ephesians 2:14–15
There is no doubt that this statement must be understood of the ceremonies, for he says that this law served as a wall separating the Jews from the Gentiles.
I therefore acknowledge that the first interpretation is rightly criticized by the second group. Nevertheless, it seems to me that they themselves have not yet fully explained the apostle’s meaning. For I do not approve of confusing these two passages as though one were entirely identical to the other.
The meaning of the passage in Ephesians is this: Saint Paul, wishing to assure the Ephesians that they had been received into fellowship with the people of Israel, tells them that the barrier which formerly divided them has been removed. This barrier consisted in the ceremonies. For the washings and sacrifices by which the Jews sanctified themselves to God separated them from the Gentiles.
But in the Epistle to the Colossians, everyone can see that Saint Paul addresses a deeper mystery. The question there concerns the Mosaic observances to which false teachers wished to subject the Christian people. Therefore, just as in the Epistle to the Galatians, when treating the same controversy, he carries the matter further and traces it back to its source, so he does here.
For if nothing is considered in the ceremonies except the obligation to perform them, why does he call them a bond of debt, and one that stood against us? And why would he place almost the whole substance of our salvation in its cancellation and destruction? It is therefore clear that we must look beyond the outward ceremonies themselves.
I am confident that I have found the true meaning, provided that what Saint Augustine very rightly writes elsewhere is acknowledged as true: that the Jewish ceremonies contained a confession of sins rather than a cleansing from them.
For what did the Jews do in sacrificing except confess themselves guilty of death, since they substituted an animal in their place to be slain? What did they do by their washings except confess themselves unclean and defiled? Thus they acknowledged the debt arising from their impurity and transgressions, but this confession did not pay that debt.
For this reason the apostle says that redemption from transgressions was accomplished through the death of Christ—transgressions that remained under the Old Testament and had not yet been abolished (Hebrews 9:15).
Saint Paul therefore rightly calls the ceremonies bonds of debt standing against those who observed them, since by those ceremonies they testified to and sealed their own condemnation.
This is not contradicted by the fact that the ancient fathers participated in the same grace as we do. For they obtained that grace through Christ, not through the ceremonies. In this passage Saint Paul separates the ceremonies from Christ because, after the gospel had been revealed, their continued observance obscured his glory.
We have therefore established that the ceremonies, when considered in themselves, are rightly called bonds of debt contrary to human salvation, since they were like legally binding documents obliging consciences to acknowledge their debts.
Therefore, because the false teachers wished to compel the Christian Church to observe them, Saint Paul rightly goes back to their original purpose and warns the Colossians of the danger into which they would fall if they allowed themselves to be brought under such bondage.
For by the same means the grace of Christ would be taken from them, since by the cleansing accomplished once for all through his death, he abolished all those external observances by which men confessed themselves indebted to God but were never discharged from their debts.