The Condition of Men before they are Regenerated
if it were contingent on our fulfillment of the law, when no one can perfectly keep the law.
But the apostle goes further, and by the judgment of the most merciful counsel of God decrees as follows: "Therefore, the promise is by faith, by grace, to ensure that it is guaranteed." As if he should say, "If the promise depended on works, our minds would continually waver; no one could be certain of their own salvation: for their conscience would constantly accuse them of not having performed the works on which the promise was made." Therefore, to prevent us from wavering, God determined that our justification should be through faith and grace, so that the promise might be secure. The same is also deduced from what is said about Abraham, how he "against hope believed in hope." He is described as believing in hope, against hope, which either in himself or in nature sees or feels nothing that might encourage hope. Just as Abraham was a hundred years old, his body was practically dead, his wife was elderly and barren; all these natural factors discouraged hope, yet overcoming them all, he hoped. But if we had merits or good works by which we might obtain righteousness, then we would not be hoping against hope, but in hope, and in accordance with hope.
Therefore, our justification must be understood no differently than it was for Abraham, for he is the father of us all; just as it was credited to him, so it shall be credited to us.
The condition of men before they are regenerated 12. But now let us turn to the fifth chapter. There again, Paul explicitly describes the condition of men before they are regenerated, saying, "For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for
the ungodly. And God demonstrates His love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." He adds, "For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life." From this, we gather that before regeneration, men are weak, sinners, ungodly, and enemies of God. Who then can attribute to such men the power to obtain righteousness at will, whenever they decide to do good works? Others may believe it, but the godly will never be so persuaded.
This point is further supported when he outlines the cause of such great evil, saying, "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned." As if to say, "We have been lost and condemned from the beginning, by the first man." And lest you should think infants are exempt, he states, "Death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of Adam's transgression." The mass of perdition encompasses all those born; from this corruption, the Holy Scriptures teach that it is not possible for men to escape by their works and claim justification for themselves.
Continuing in the sixth chapter, our apostle says, "What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life." What else do these words mean than that all actions performed by men before they believe in Christ are deserving of nothing but disgrace and shame? There is no fruit of sanctification, but it follows regeneration itself. And who will claim that we are justified by those things full of disgrace and shame?
But now let us consider what is said at the beginning of the seventh chapter: "Do you not know, brothers and sisters—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law has authority over someone only as long as that person lives? For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law that binds her to him. So then, if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law and is not an adulteress, even though she marries another man." In the same way, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. Paul uses this analogy to explain that before our faith in Christ, we were, as it were, married to the law and to the flesh, from which union no fruits could come except those that are harmful and deadly. But now, having been liberated by God's grace, we are joined to Christ by the Spirit—to Christ who was raised from the dead—through which union we now bear fruit for God, and not for death and condemnation.
And he further clarifies, or rather explains, when he adds, "When we were in the realm of the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death." Note that as long as we were in the flesh, we were subject to wicked passions, which were effective in our bodies by the law. How then could we be justified by our works? Further, in the same chapter, he writes, "For I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature." Here, as it clearly appears, he discusses the works of men. Although I have effectively shown in interpreting these words that they are to be understood as
the works of the godly, who are already justified, I now leave it to the adversaries to interpret as they will. If they concede that these are works done before justification, and as they are neither approved nor good, how can they merit righteousness? For they are called evil, and no one is justified by an evil action. But if we understand these works, as here described, to be the works of those who are justified, then I argue from the greater: If those works, which might seem most acceptable, just, and holy to God, are called evil and are not approved by a now-renewed sense of reason, how can we assert then that those works, which are of sinners, are such that they can justify?
13. Lest anyone should say that we base our argument only on what happens due to the slothfulness of people, whereas the debate is about what could be done if people were to apply their goodwill (for many are not justified by their good works, whereas they could be justified by them if they wished), we answer with the apostle in the eighth chapter. He says, "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh." This passage reminds us that the righteousness required by the commandments could not be achieved by the aid of the law, due to the corruption and weakness of the flesh; and for that reason, Christ was sent by the Father to accomplish what we could not. He also teaches us shortly thereafter: after stating that "the mind governed by the flesh is death," he further adds that it is
"hostile to God; for it does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so."
Therefore, whatever we do by our own natural strength and ability (which is termed 'flesh'), resists God; for our corrupted nature cannot be made subject to God's law. And since this is the case, we cannot be justified by such deeds. Later in the same chapter, we read,
"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose." In these